Why marginality persists in a governable fishery

This paper examines the issue of reproduction of marginality widespread in fisheries: why does inequality and social exclusion persist? Using governability as an overarching basis for interpreting this issue, the purpose of... [ view full abstract ]

This paper examines the issue of reproduction of marginality widespread in fisheries: why does inequality and social exclusion persist? Using governability as an overarching basis for interpreting this issue, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the possibility that marginalization, not only a feature of ungovernability, might also occur in a governable system, as both the product and the cause of governability. For this, we engage an expanded notion of governability that draws on relational dynamics between main governance actors and applies it to the case of small-scale fisher exclusion brought on by the implementation of individual transferable quota in New Zealand’s commercial fishery. Analysis using theoretical tools of political ecology help reveal the changing social and economic relations that give rise to an accentuated capitalist structure whereby the quota-owning sector of the population (e.g. processing companies and Maori tribal organizations) has control over the ways in which fishers access economic benefits from their labor. As an asset primarily managed for capital gain rather than as a right to fish, quota has gained acceptance as a resource management strategy, an intervention that is now ideologically hard to break away. The result is the reproduction of fisher exclusion which contributes to a governable fishery, rather than an ungovernable one. This understanding casts a critical note on what we mean by governability, directing our attention to the ethical questions regarding how we govern and how successful we are in doing so as well as a risk that comes with its pursuit.