Competing voices: Indigenous rights in the shadow of conventional fisheries management in the tropical rock lobster fishery in Torres Strait, Australia

Abstract

Much progress has been made in recent decades in achieving high-level recognition of indigenous fishing rights. Despite these advances, actualization of indigenous rights to own and control marine resources has proven challenging. Insufficient attention to the centrality of power and its workings in fisheries are often the subject of critiques and of calls for more empirical research. This paper draws on interviews, participant observation, cognitive mapping, scenario workshops, and policy document review to examine power configurations and dynamics in the tropical rock lobster (TRL) fishery in Torres Strait (TS), Australia. Despite recognition of indigenous commercial fishing rights by the High Court in 2013, there have been only limited changes in how fisheries governance operates in the region. The current TRL management plan also risks entrenching non-indigenous interests in the fishery, thereby preventing Islanders from achieving their aspiration to fully own and control TS fisheries. Through an analysis drawing from Foucault’s theory of governmentality and Blaser’s political ontology framework, we show (1) how current fisheries management structures, processes and discourses are at odds with Islanders’ conceptions of the fisheries; and (2) how the existing regime excludes and renders silent Islander priorities. Our findings extend to indigenous-state relations in other state-managed fisheries. We believe our proposed conceptual framework can be useful in unveiling power relations that constrain indigenous rights and in identifying transformation options. We conclude that a sea change in conventional fisheries governance arrangements is needed to respond to new imperatives and expectations around indigenous fishing rights and interests.