Abstract
We set out to explore some of the impediments which hinder effective communication among fishers, fisheries researchers and managers using detailed ethnographic research amongst commercial handline fishers from two sites– one on the southern Cape coast and the other on the west coast of South Africa. Rather than assuming that the knowledge of fishers and scientists is inherently divergent and incompatible, we discuss an emerging relational approach to working with multiple ways of knowing and suggest that this approach might benefit future collaborative endeavours. Three major themes arising from the ethnographic fieldwork findings are explored: different classifications of species and things; bringing enumerative approaches into dialogue with relational approaches; and the challenge of articulating embodied ways of relating to fish and the sea. Although disconcertments arise when apparently incommensurable approaches are brought into dialogue, we suggest that working with multiple ways of knowing is both productive and indeed necessary in the current South African fisheries research and management contexts. The research findings and discussion on opening dialogue offered in this work suggest a need to rethink contemporary approaches to fisheries research in order to mobilise otherwise stagnant conversations, bringing different ways of knowing into productive conversation.
Highlights
In 2000, with a stock crisis in the country’s commercial line fisheries looming, South Africa’s government took steps to mitigate against widespread collapse by adopting a policy of reduced access rights for commercial fishers
What transpired was a dramatic curtailing of effort in the inshore fisheries, concomitant with the introduction of the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998 (MLRA), which left many fishers without legal rights to carry out their trade on a commercial level
Instead of looking solely at how fishers know, which reiterates their apparent difference from science, the more productive approach is to try to understand where and how the dialogue runs into difficulty
Summary
In 2000, with a stock crisis in the country’s commercial line fisheries looming, South Africa’s government took steps to mitigate against widespread collapse by adopting a policy of reduced access rights for commercial fishers. What transpired was a dramatic curtailing of effort in the inshore fisheries, concomitant with the introduction of the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998 (MLRA), which left many fishers without legal rights to carry out their trade on a commercial level This disenfranchisement lead to widespread dissatisfaction and often contempt for the authorities and MLRA amongst many fishers and fishing communities, resulting in both political action and poaching in a number of instances.[1,2]. The conceptual framework and associated tools which we employ begin with the idea that the ways in which people engage the world are based on interactive relationships with humans and non-humans alike The strength of this approach lies in being open to working with multiple ways of knowing without assuming that one represents complete truth while another is complete falsehood
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