Beyond Discards: Blue Justice for Portuguese Artisanal Fishers

This critical ethnographic study examines the recent commercialization of discards in the artisanal fishing called Arte‑Xávega in Costa da Caparica, Portugal, through the lens of blue justice. Drawing on 129 semi‑structured interviews and participant observation over 83 field visits (2024–2025), the article traces the shifting trajectory of discards: from their historical use as agricultural fertilizer and former abandonment on beaches to their current commercialization as low‑cost feed for tuna aquaculture. The study asks whether incorporating discards into industrial value chains deepens the vulnerability of small‑scale fishers and makes three contributions to blue justice literature in different directions. First, it demonstrates empirically how the conditional commercialization of discards, while reducing beach discarding, exacerbates economic marginalisation through industrial pillaging and value chain grabbing of the commercial catch. Second, it shows how top–down regulations exclude fishers from decision‑making and reduce their participation. Third, it problematises the commercialization of discards, revealing that market integration can generate new forms of dependency and volatility rather than greater justice. Findings reveal that discards commercialization is embedded in unequal power relations, where large‑scale corporations appropriate resources from the fishing community. Territorially integrated alternatives such as agricultural use of discards and menus for self‑consumption are (re)emerging as bottom‑up pathways, but remain incipient and face structural barriers. At the same time, this study seeks to promote an approach to equity that gives prominence to the voices of the fishers themselves through their local knowledge, fostering a more transversal dialogue with the theoretical framework itself, in pursuit of greater intellectual justice.