The Structural Marginalization of Artisanal Fishing Communities: The Case of La Boquita

Abstract

IntroductionIn Mexico, the artisanal fishing sector suffers from structural marginalization characterized by, on the one hand, the growing loss of economic autonomy and control over the economic activity, natural resources, and territory of artisanal fishing communities, and, on the other hand, by these groups' increasing social exclusion and the deterioration of the internal social bonds linking their members. Three main factors have led to this situation. First, the neo-liberal reforms introduced by the federal government have led, on the one hand, to an effort of diversification leading to the promotion of industrial fisheries and, on the other hand, to the increasingly frequent sale of coastal land to foreign investors. Second, a reduction of the government's involvement in the social sector of the fisheries, especially the artisanal fishery has led both to a decrease in the size and number of loans accorded to fishing co-operatives and to a deregulation process that has eliminated the co-operatives' exclusive control over certain species. Finally, despite diverse governmental initiatives to take into account the importance, heterogeneity, and needs of the artisanal fishing communities by commissioning scientific reports and organizing meetings with community leaders, bureaucrats, and scientists, these attempts remain insufficient and often irrelevant to the population concerned because they fail to acknowledge pivotal issues: poverty, environmental degradation, resource depletion and the internal atomization of fishing communities.This article offers a case study of structural marginalization in the artisanal fishing community of La Boquita, on the Mexican Pacific coast. This community owes its existence to the battle its members have led for the right to keep on fishing and to remain on the territory that they have now occupied for more than sixty years. As we shall see, their struggle revolves around three elements: (1) land conflicts with various government institutions that have repeatedly failed to respect community members' property rights, (2) the encroachment of the tourism industry on residential and productive areas, which severely damages the environment and its marine resources, (3) increased pressure from the sport fishing industry to limit the community's access to some demersal species, such as tuna, swordfish, and marlin, and to certain fishing zones. The combined conflicts of this context have embroiled community members in a constant and time-consuming mobilization process, and moreover have jeopardized the community's internal cohesion, rendering its future even more precarious. Let us first consider how the theory of political ecology allows us to analyze this dynamic.Political ecology and La Boquita's strugglePolitical ecology is a relatively new research field in the social sciences. It emerged in the 1980s from political economy, human geography, ecological anthropology, and human ecology as a testimony to a growing concern with the complex interactions between humans and the environment. Even though its definition is quite elusive and somewhat variable between researchers and academic backgrounds, Blaikie and Brookfield (1987: 17) identify some basic commonalities: The phrase political ecology combines the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy. Together, this encompasses the constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources, and also within classes and groups within the society itself.(...)The complexity of these relationships demands an approach which can encompass interactive effects, the contribution of different geographical scales and hierarchies of socioeconomic organizations (e.g. persons, household, village, region, state, world) and the contradiction between social and environmental changes through time.More succinctly, Bryant (1992: 13) proposes that broadly, Third World political ecology may be defined as the attempt to understand the political sources, conditions and ramifications of environmental change. …