Target 1 of SDG 14 on marine pollution has been instrumental in building momentum towards a coordinated response to the plastic pollution crisis facing the world’s ocean. The 2017 UN Ocean Conference saw a record number of registered voluntary commitments related to stemming plastic pollution, from local grassroots action to scientific research, as well as government initiatives limiting single-use plastics. By the time of the second UN Ocean Conference in June 2022, the UN Environment Assembly had, in March 2022, already adopted a resolution to develop by 2025 an international legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution. This international instrument is currently under negotiation and is facing contentious discussions influenced by petroleum interests. However, the very existence of these negotiations is owed to a large degree to the grassroots momentum built through SDG 14 Target 1 and a growing public concern about linkages between plastic pollution and human health and nascent national blue economies. This article will trace the pathway through which SDG 14 voluntary commitments, from local to global, have led by example while building a global sense of urgency to address the plastic pollution crisis. The article will also provide examples of how local communities and governments have experienced and responded to the crisis. Lessons learned from these local examples will be provided to link local measures and priorities to the global level in a way that can inform how the plastic pollution treaty is both negotiated and implemented.

Arctic security has been growing in popularity across academia, policymaking, and news media. However, this popularity has come with a notable question: What does Arctic security mean, and how/what knowledges underpin it? This study traces the discourse on Arctic security from the Cold War to the present examining the emergence of different types of security which range from more traditional variants to wider and deeper readings such as environmental and comprehensive security. I identify key strands of Arctic security discourse, trace their interaction over time, and periodize the region. While the Cold War era was dominated by nuclear and traditional security logic, there have been three main shifts since then including (a) the 1990s–2007, (b) 2007–2019, and (c) 2019–present. This research finds that Arctic security knowledge follows global security trends. Thus, as security has widened and deepened globally, so too have the potential meanings of Arctic security expanded. However, there is a clear hierarchy in today’s general discourse with what issues take center stage for the Arctic such as great power competition and climate change. This is in contrast to the Arctic Council, which takes into account all but military security definitions for Arctic security and integrates them in a relatively balanced way. This has implications for ocean governance institutions and the degree to which traditional military security concerns should be left out of broader ocean governance.

Seafaring is a highly male‐dominated occupation. Within the industry, there is an ambition to increase the proportion of women working in maritime professions. In this endeavor, it is relevant to examine how seafarers are portrayed in various contexts. This study aimed to explore the image of seafarers as presented in Swedish maritime magazines: How are seafarers described, and can these descriptions be seen as performative in shaping a professional identity? To meet this aim, a discourse analysis was performed, based on 20 texts from two maritime magazines, representing both rating and officer seafarers. Overall, six subject positions inhabited by seafarers were identified, with several overlapping characteristics. For example, traits of the traditional seafarer were also found in the masculine seafarer and the flexible seafarer. Furthermore, it is argued that several of the subject positions are difficult to combine with what is referred to as the gender‐equal seafarer, mainly due to challenges in balancing family life with extended periods at sea. The study shows that today’s seafarers, according to how they are depicted in Swedish maritime magazines, have considerable agency in shaping their own professional identity without being forced to conform to a hegemonic masculinity. Finally, it is suggested that the term “seafarer” be used instead of “seaman” in both print and everyday conversations, for increased inclusiveness and representation.

Recent years have witnessed a seemingly constant call for improved understanding of human–ocean relationships, resulting in a “boom” of marine social science research, sometimes framed through the lens of ocean literacy. Defined as having an understanding of your influence on the ocean, and its influence on you, ocean literacy has gained traction in recent years as a way of better understanding the complexities of human–ocean relationships. However, despite this interest in the human dimensions of the ocean, coasts and seas, and a corresponding increase in broader marine social sciences research, qualitative and arts‐based research approaches continue to remain on the periphery of ocean research. This article explores the role of two ocean research “outliers,” intersecting arts‐based practice and marine social sciences through the lens of interconnected performances designed to explore the diverse values held by communities about their marine and coastal environment. Undertaken as part of the Diverse Marine Values project, the performances brought together ocean scientists, coastal and marine managers, and community members to create original performance pieces in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, and Portsmouth, England. Drawing heavily on applied theatre practice and scholarship, these distinct but interrelated performances utilised elements of forum theatre, devised theatre, and storytelling to address marine issues important to each respective community, with a view to understanding and fostering ocean literacy. In each location, the performance work illustrated ways in which theatre can serve as not only a tool for science communication, but also a research method to explore a range of ocean literacy dimensions. The performances helped the research team, comprised jointly of specialist theatre practitioners and experts in ocean literacy, coastal management, and plastics pollution to reshape data collection and stakeholder engagement. This collaborative theatre‐making process led to deeper conversations and embedded engagement within each coastal community. It also led to a fundamental reshaping of the questions and approaches that the marine managers and scientists asked of the communities in question. The article presents a discussion of the challenges of bridging these related, but often distant, disciplines, and highlights the role of arts‐based research practice in broader ocean literacy research and discourse.

The Netherlands hosts a significant drug industry involving global crime groups targeting local professionals, such as fishers for drug smuggling, real estate agents for money laundering, and harbor masters for marina access. To raise awareness of potential criminal involvement, various government organizations collaborate within an Organized Crime Field Lab. This approach shifts the focus from repressively apprehending criminals to protecting legal businesses and professionals by enabling the public to inform, detect, and report smuggling activities, and by helping relevant sectors identify and regulate activities that facilitate organized crime. This article examines how maritime policing professionals experience the process, outcomes, and challenges within the Maritime Smuggling Project (MSP) and its contribution to building a more resilient society against criminal involvement. Based on 34 interviews, hybrid observations, and an online questionnaire with MSP participants, the study suggests that maritime criminal justice relies on the idea that a resilient community is less likely to engage in or facilitate criminal maritime activities. However, it also indicates that collaboration in itself is not enough to create an impact on policing. Findings reveal that innovations in criminal justice need open‐ended, long‐term, impact‐focused responses from projects like the MSP, along with maritime professionals willing to adopt new policing methods. Yet, traditional, path‐dependent criminal justice institutions often undermine these innovations by prioritizing immediate, measurable, short‐term results that benefit their organization instead of the overarching goal of preventing maritime crime and societal involvement in it. As a result, even those tasked with developing innovative approaches are limited by institutional constraints and ingrained habits.

SDG 14 “life below water” aims to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development. As SDG 14 is considered one of the most difficult goals to achieve, for the most part, academic discourse on SDG 14 tends to focus on the negatives. More specifically, the lack of progress, limitations and barriers in achieving its seven targets and three sub‐targets. While the study of the challenges in reaching key targets is critical in understanding the myriad of issues facing the world’s oceans and seas, this thematic issue provides an important opportunity to explore a key question, namely whether we failing to give due recognition to the important work and innovative approaches being undertaken at a local, regional, and global level to implement SDG 14 and improve the health of our coastal and marine environments? This thematic issue provides a platform for showcasing success stories in implementing SDG 14, thereby departing from the usual focus on the negatives.

Although the Pacific Islands are strategically located alongside important trade routes, between the Global North and Global South countries and among plentiful fishing grounds, this region is considered among the lowest risk for land‐based organized crime. Grouped as a uniform region, collectively, the Pacific islands are anything but. The region consists of three ethnogeographic subregions with varying colonial, cultural, and legal legacies. Geographically, the Pacific Island states are remote, with small populations dispersed across many islands, some of which are uninhabited, limiting the ability to adequately surveil and protect this extensive maritime domain, creating porous land and sea borders. These challenges increase the complexity of policing the large exclusive economic zones of the region and therefore increase its vulnerability and potential exposure to various transnational organized crimes on land and at sea. Drawing on Kelling and Wilson’s broken windows theory, this article considers from a theoretical perspective, how international law can be used as a framework to guide Pacific Island states in achieving strengthened, region‐led resilience to transnational maritime crime in the pursuit of maritime justice.

The development of informal science learning programs is a key strategy for supplementing traditional training for early career researchers (ECR). Within the marine sector, there has been a proliferation of international summer schools (a form of informal science learning program) to support ECRs to develop the networks, skills, and attributes needed to tackle ocean sustainability challenges and support the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (e.g., collaboration across disciplines, policy engagement, etc.). Yet, there exists very little evidence on the impact generated by such informal science learning programs or the design strategies that can confer their success. This commentary seeks to address this knowledge gap by considering the successful biennial Climate and Ecosystems (ClimEco) marine summer school series that has run since 2008. Specifically, we draw on the perspectives of lecturers and organisers, in combination with a survey of ClimEco participants ( = 38 ECRs) to understand the drivers and motivations of ECRs to attend summer schools, the types of outcomes and impacts that summer schools can have for marine ECRs, and the key factors that led to the successful attainment of these impacts, outcomes, and benefits. In doing so, we develop guidance that would enable global summer school convenors to effectively support the next generation of marine researchers to advance ocean sustainability.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia captured international attention in the early 2010s. The regional approach to prosecuting piracy in East Africa required multi‐state participation and involved an array of local and international actors that ultimately reshaped criminal justice systems and understandings of maritime crime. Kenya was the first country in the region to agree to try suspected pirates as part of the UN regional model for prosecuting pirates. As they updated their piracy laws with the assistance of international legal advisors, many of the details concerning who could be tried in Kenyan courts, what constitutes evidence, and the rights that should be afforded to suspected pirates were continuously modified as court proceedings unfolded. Employing an iterative thematic content analysis of piracy trial transcripts obtained from the High Court of Mombasa in Kenya, this study explores how weapons and fear became central components of establishing guilt in piracy prosecutions. Accordingly, it highlights the dynamic relationship between fear, relative plausibility, and maritime justice that constitute the affective dimensions of justice at work in East Africa’s regional piracy prosecution model.

Knowledge production is inherently social, as humans interpret their environment. Scientific knowledge production differs from non‐scientific production in its systematic data collection for validation, yet both involve a social element shaping our understanding of the world. This article investigates social contestation processes as part of knowledge production processes on a German research vessel and in German and Brazilian marine science institutes, with a particular focus on the social identity markers of gender, ethnicity, and age and how they affect team‐based sense‐making processes. Methodologically, our research draws on participant observation of marine scientists and associated non‐scientists in their daily working routines as well as semi‐structured interviews. This took place on a research vessel in 2021 and in marine science institutes from 2022 to 2024. Conceptually, the research follows approaches of the sociology of knowledge and intersectional approaches that integrate transnational experiences across national borders and other (physical) boundaries. Based on this empirical research, we assess transnational intersectional sense‐making practices at sea. Our findings show that (sexual) harassment in marine knowledge production processes occurs independent of localities, intersectional discrimination at sea leads either to emancipation processes or to withdrawal, and tensions arise in particular between scientists and non‐scientists, which broadens the gap between these social groups and knowledge systems. We conclude by providing recommendations for a more diverse workforce at sea and in marine sciences so that the conduct of research and work at sea can be more inclusive, equal, and safe.