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Fishing as a livelihood, a way of life, or just a job: considering the complexity of “fishing communities” in research and policy

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Abstract

In the scientific literature on fisheries, the concept of community is often used broadly to indicate a place-based group whose members are dedicated to fisheries and have relatively homogeneous economic, social, and cultural interests. However, this categorical perspective to scope a “fishing community” is not necessarily an insightful approach to explore diverse social relationships with the marine environment, fishwork, and management in a practical context, and risks mismatches with science-based recommendations for management and policy. Drawing from ethnographic work, we highlight different historical and cultural dynamics from four case studies from fisheries in northwest Mexico. We identify key factors that help contextualize fishwork relationships, related to the importance of fishing practices on worldviews, daily routines, and income. These are used to derive three configurations (livelihood, way of life, and job) that describe and give analytical content to the notion of these fishing communities. Our use of a typology is not intended to generalize them or provide universal categories, but rather to convey to a broad range of fisheries scientists the importance of considering social contexts in the places in which we work and learn, and a set of guiding questions that may help in this regard. Contextualizing the importance of historical and cultural factors in sco** community units beyond occupational or geographical characteristics is essential for identifying and addressing (in)equitable processes and outcomes in fisheries sectors, research, and management.

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Data Availability

The information generated and analyzed during the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center at EarthLab, University of Washington. We thank Dr. Pedro González-Espinosa for his help preparing Figure 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Anthropology and History of Northern Mexico, National Institute of Anthropology and History, Chihuahua, Mexico

    Claudia E. Delgado-Ramírez

  2. Ocean Nexus, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Yoshitaka Ota

  3. Ocean Nexus, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

    Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor

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  1. Claudia E. Delgado-Ramírez
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  2. Yoshitaka Ota
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  3. Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor
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All authors contributed to the Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, and Writing of the Original and Revised Manuscript; CEDR performed the Investigation; AMCM and YO contributed to Supervision, Project Administration, and Funding Acquisition.

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Correspondence to Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor.

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Delgado-Ramírez, C.E., Ota, Y. & Cisneros-Montemayor, A.M. Fishing as a livelihood, a way of life, or just a job: considering the complexity of “fishing communities” in research and policy. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 33, 265–280 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-022-09721-y

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