Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Adaptive Self-governance of Small-scale Commercial Fishers in Northeast Puerto Rico: Characterizing Formal and Informal Cooperation during Times of Crises

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/n296x5848

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  • Small-scale fisheries often suffer from weak, formal governance, and in response they organize in various ways. These self-organizational arrangements rely on the capacity of informal institutions, such as norms and communication, in generating social cohesion among actors in the supply chain and therefore improve the likelihood of generating commonly devised rules and practices among resource users. While social network perspectives have been used to understand the cohesiveness of fishers operating with the same gear type or in the same fishing communities, less is known about the differences in social cohesion between fishers that operate through formally cooperative arrangements, such as fishing associations, and independent fishers who operate through informal cooperation. This study used semi-structured interviews and a social network survey to compare social cohesion arising from information-sharing and work-support networks in five fishing communities of north-eastern Puerto Rico, as they coped with prolonged hurricane recovery and the unfolding impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of exponential random graph models were applied to untangle the drivers of cohesion arising from the sharing of information among commercial fishers. The communication between these commercial fishers was driven not just by operating in the same landing site or using the same primary gear type but also choosing to organize their fishing under the same formal or informal arrangement. Specifically, fishers that were members of fishing associations mostly communicated among themselves, while independent fishers talked across organizational arrangements, confirming the role of fishing associations in fostering social cohesion. However, associated fishers were less likely to receive information than independent fishers, suggesting the need for targeted communication strategies for each group. Independent fishers had more quantity of work support ties and diversity of institutional actors to support their operations across the supply chain, when compared to associated fishers, suggesting their higher levels of linking social capital. Multiple social factors explained whether fishers choose to be members of fishing associations or remain independent, including trust in leaders and agreement of membership rules. These findings contribute evidence on the cooperative outcomes of informal institutions in small-scale fisheries. The study contextualizes implications for community-based fisheries management in Puerto Rico.
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  • Diversity Pipeline Fellowship
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  • Pending Publication
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  • 2021-09-20 to 2022-10-20

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