“We are here to make money”: New terrains of community in small-scale fisheries in Lake Victoria, Tanzania

Allegretti, Antonio (2019) “We are here to make money”: New terrains of community in small-scale fisheries in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. Journal of Rural Studies, 70. pp. 49-57. ISSN 0743-0167

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Abstract

Fishing communities are at the heart of policies of co-management in small-scale fisheries around the world, including Lake Victoria. The assumption is that, fish and the activity of fishing being carriers of locally shared values and identity underlying ‘fishing communities’, devolution of power (to the communities) will initiate a virtuous circle that can minimise exploitation and favour sustainable resource management. This article builds on emerging literature that has questioned these assumptions with an ethnography of community as developed in conjunction with heightened globalizing forces, and examining the effects of local-global linkages of identity. It emerges that fish continues to be central in determining identity and community but in novel ways, that is as a commodity to be exploited for economic success rather than as carrier of local identities. The local-global market linkages that have triggered this transformation have thus created new identities away from identity as ‘fisherman’, and grounded in individual rather than collective experience, but nevertheless leading to new short-term communities that emerge across space around particular business-related agendas. Fisheries policies need to be re-examined in light of this transformation; stronger attention needs to be paid to the broader socio-economic context in which ‘communities’ emerge for more effective co-management of resources.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Rural Studies
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Research Output Funding/yes_externally_funded
Subjects:
?? yes - externally fundeddevelopmentsociology and political scienceforestrygeography, planning and development ??
ID Code:
226911
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
17 Jan 2025 15:05
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
18 Jan 2025 02:26