Abstract
This research is a critical examination of the behavioral foundations of livelihood pathways over a 50-year time period in a multispecies fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Fishers make difficult decisions to pursue, enjoy, and protect their livelihoods in times of change and uncertainty, and the resultant behaviors shape efforts to advance sustainability through coastal and marine fisheries governance. However, there is limited evidence about fishers’ behavioral changes over long time periods, and the psychosocial experiences that underpin them, beyond what is assumed using neoclassical economic and rational choice framings. Our analysis draws on 26 narrative interviews with fishers who have pursued two or more fish species currently or formerly. Fishers were asked about their behavioral responses to change and uncertainty in coastal fisheries across their entire lifetimes. Their narratives highlighted emotional, perceptual, and values-oriented factors that shaped how fishers coped and adapted to change and uncertainty. The contributions to theory and practice are two-fold. First, findings included variation in patterns of fisher behaviors. Those patterns reflected fishers prioritizing and trading-off material or relational well-being. With policy relevance, prioritizations and trade-offs of forms of well-being led to unexpected outcomes for shifting capacity and capitalization for fishers and in fisheries more broadly. Second, findings identified the influence of emotions as forms of subjective well-being. Further, emotions and perceptions functioned as explanatory factors that shaped well-being priorities and trade-offs, and ultimately, behavioral change. Research findings emphasize the need for scientists, policy-makers, and managers to incorporate psychosocial evidence along with social science about fisher behavior into their models, policy processes, and management approaches. Doing so is likely to support efforts to anticipate impacts from behavioral change on capacity and capitalization in fleets and fisheries, and ultimately, lead to improved governance outcomes.
Highlights
Fisheries policy implementation involves anticipating and steering – through models and planning – the benefits and burdens of trade-off and decisions associated with socialecological change (Blythe et al, 2020)
Lessons from understanding and explaining fisher behavior in a local context are critical because, as Fulton et al (2011): (3) argue in their review, “a consistent outcome [of policy implementation] is that resource users behave in a manner that is often unintended by the designers of the management system.”
Our results addressed two objectives: (1) document and compare inshore fishers’ (IFs) behavioral responses to change and uncertainty as livelihood pathways, and (2) examine explanations of behavioral change by assessing the influence of emotions, perceptions, and well-being
Summary
Fisheries policy implementation involves anticipating and steering – through models and planning – the benefits and burdens of trade-off and decisions associated with socialecological change (Blythe et al, 2020). The outcomes of these policy choices, are linked to international commitments and national objectives aimed at addressing drivers of change related to climate, economic development, and biodiversity loss (Chuenpagdee and Jentoft, 2018; Stephenson et al, 2019; Lam et al, 2020). Lessons from understanding and explaining fisher behavior in a local context are critical because, as Fulton et al (2011): (3) argue in their review, “a consistent outcome [of policy implementation] is that resource users behave in a manner that is often unintended by the designers of the management system.” In short, to anticipate fisheries policy outcomes, scientists and decision-makers need to better understand fisher behavior
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