Purpose The study explores the socio-economic and environmental implications of the development of the Vizhinjam Seaport International Limited in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, particularly focussing on the marginalised Mukkuva (fishermen) community, who are largely dependent on the coastal ecosystem for their livelihood. Drawing on ethnographic research, it argues that the conflict is fundamentally a struggle over ownership, care and rights to the sea. While the blue economy frames coastal waters as spaces of investment and infrastructural development, the Mukkuva community understands the sea as a commons sustained through intergenerational labour, care and belonging. The study explores how port-led development produces dispossession and ecological uncertainty, while the Church, as a civil society institution, enabled collective resistance and recognition. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Vizhinjam, Kerala. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, participant observation and field visits among fishers, clergy, activists and community leaders. Particular attention was paid to local understandings of the sea, experiences of displacement, ecological change and resistance to the port project. Ethnographic findings were complemented by analysis of policy documents, Environmental Impact Assessment reports, media reports and legal records. The study offers a qualitative account of how coastal communities negotiate competing claims over marine resources and development. Findings Drawing on ethnographic research among the Mukkuva community, this study shows how port-led development transforms the sea from a lived commons into strategic infrastructure serving national and corporate interests, further raising the question of whether investments in finance or nurture grant rights to control the sea. At its heart lies a contest over ownership, legitimacy and the authority to define the future of coastal environments. The restrictions on fishing, the erosion of customary access and the increasing regulation of marine spaces reveal how dispossession operates not only through the loss of land but also through the gradual loss of collective ownership within the community. It was in this context that the Church emerged as a significant civil society institution, translating ecological loss, collective ownership and exclusion into politically visible claims. Yet its role was neither straightforward nor uniformly oppositional. Rather, the Church occupied a complex position between resistance, negotiation and its existence, illustrating how civil society organisations mediate struggles over large-scale development projects embedded within the very political structures they seek to influence. Originality/value The study contributes to debates on the blue economy by shifting attention from economic growth to questions of ownership, care and marine commons. Bringing together scholarship on accumulation by dispossession, commons governance, civil society and recognition, it demonstrates how conflicts over coastal development are simultaneously struggles over who has the authority to define, govern and care for the sea. Empirically, the study provides original ethnographic insights into the Vizhinjam conflict and highlights the role of the Church as a civil society institution that validates grassroots claims. The findings advance discussions on fisher rights, environmental justice and democratic coastal governance.
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