Making Space for Community Resource Management in Fisheries

• Published in: Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol. 91; no. 1; pp. 122 - 142
• Main Author: SAINT MARTIN, K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Taylor & Francis Group 01.03.2001; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell Publishers Inc; Association of American Geographers; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Bgi / Prodig; Boats; Brackish; co-management; Communities; Community; Community development; Community fisheries; Fish; Fisheries; Fisheries management; Fisheries science; Fishermen; Fishers; Fishery economics; Fishery resources; Fishing; Fishing communities; Fishing. Sea exploitation; Freshwater; Human geography; Landscape; Mapping; Marine; Nature and Society; Ocean fisheries; Political and economic geography; Resource management; space; Sustainable fisheries management; United States of America; New England; Discourse; Social space; Fishery; Management; Fishing; Fishing resources; Community
• ISSN: 0004-5608; 2469-4452; 1467-8306; 2469-4460
• DOI: 10.1111/0004-5608.00236

The dominant discourse of fisheries science and management, bioeconomics, places the behavior of individual fishermen operating on an open-access commons at the center of its understanding of fisheries resources and the fishing industry. Within this discourse, fishermen are the sole actors and the fishery is the fixed stage for an inevitable 'tragedy of the commons.' Starting from these particular assumptions of both subject and space, bioeconomics proposes solutions to fisheries crisis that differ sharply from fishers' perceptions of the resource and their desires for management. These divergent understandings of both the natural and social environments are reflected in the maps produced by fisheries scientists/managers and those produced by fishers themselves. Remapping fisheries in terms of fishers' perceptions and scales of operation reveals diverse natural landscapes and communities in which the dominant discourse charted only quantities of fish and individual fishermen. The landscape of fishing communities, once made visible, suggests an opportunity for forms of area-based management that might facilitate community development rather than just individual prosperity.