A gendered blue economy?
Women’s roles in Peru’s marine sector are vital yet often overlooked. A new study by the Humboldt Tipping researchers Sara Doolittle Llanos, María Garteizgogeascoa & Isabel E. Gonzales calls for a more equitable approach to the country’s expanding blue economy.
The study shows the life trajectories of three women working in fishing and aquaculture sectors in two coastal communities: San Andrés, roughly 250 km south of Lima, and Bahía Encanto, a small coastal community in the north of Peru. These women take on a range of roles, from seafood processing to vessel ownership, however, their work and that of many other women often goes unrecognized in larger political discussions concerning the fishing sector. Women’s work is limited by gendered labor division, male dominance and gender-based violence—a reality many women in these fields continue to face every day, and the precarious nature of both formal and informal labor.
The authors suggest a need for Peru’s discourses surrounding the blue economy to shift from blue growth to blue justice, which aims to secure fair opportunities and recognition for all genders in marine-related activities by contending with the structural inequalities of the current modes of marine extractivism.
Read more about the processes shaping women’s roles and the structural constraints they face within Peru’s blue economy in the open-access paper in the journal of Ocean and Society.
Doolittle Llanos, S., Garteizgogeascoa, M., & Gonzales, I.E. (2025). A Gendered Blue Economy? Critical Perspectives Through Women’s Participation in Peru. Ocean and Society, 2. https://doi.org/10.17645/oas.9167
