Applying Political Ecology - or at least trying to

Emily Young’s “State Intervention and Abuse of the Commons: Fisheries Development in Baja California Sur, Mexico” documents her comparative study into the experiences of two fishing communities, Laguna San Ignacio and Bahía Magdalena. It traces the history of state management and subsequent deregulation of both fisheries, and the detrimental effects this had. Young draws attention to “the state’s conflicting role as both developer and protector of the commons” (p. 300), yet notes that differences in the provision of state-funding towards infrastructure led to better mitigation of ill effects for one community than the other. Most importantly, however, Young argues that a ‘tragedy of incursion’ rather than ‘of the commons’ is to blame for the increase in illegal fishing practices in both communities.

Chapter Four of Peet et al.’s Global Political Ecology, written by Becky Mansfield, is an overview of the poor state of the world’s oceans. It lays the blame for the situation on the inherent contradictions built into the global fishing industry, which is characterised as a by-product of capitalism and neoliberal expansion. Meanwhile, the Global North’s excessive fish consumption and large-scale industrialisation of the trade are identified as the driving forces behind this crisis, and small-scale fisheries are seen as the solution.

Both texts problematise the metaphor of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ in relation to fisheries management. But due to both Mansfield’s failure to offer any guiding principles for future action, and on the other hand, Young’s appreciation of finer nuances – for instance, her acknowledgement of not only the constraints but also the opportunities ushered in by neoliberal reforms – I would categorise Young’s article as a counter-narrative, whereas Mansfield’s as purely a critique.

Another shortcoming of Mansfield’s paper is her insufficient buttressing of the ‘Nature’ pillar as part of a political ecological approach. For instance, she continues to extol the virtues of small-scale fishing despite having offered a page-long acknowledgement that the oversimplified ‘large-scale’/‘small-scale’ binary is problematic, that there is lack of consensus on what characterises each, and (as I have learned through past research on this issue) that there is a considerable shortfall of available data on artisanal fishing practices and their effects. The lack of evidence to support her advocacy is driven home by the fact that she then goes on to extol merely the socio-economic merits of small-scale fisheries (i.e. poverty alleviation), rather than provide any demonstration of their ecological sustainability and capacity to revive fish stocks. In failing to pay sufficient attention to the ‘material reality’ of her argument, I fear Mansfield has left her work open to the criticism of being overtly normative and insufficiently substantiated.

Furthermore, Mansfield’s paper fails to offer any discussion of the data which it invokes. Again, given that artisanal fisheries are under-represented within the global body of fisheries research, it is surprising that she cites statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations without at least acknowledging that they are, at best, indicative rather than conclusive. This seems to me to be incongruous with the wider drive within political ecology to elucidate discourse construction and the formulation of narratives and knowledge(s).

Young, on the other hand – despite also presenting an overall sparse consideration of the natural/ ecological forces at work and thus straying slightly into the territory of anthropology/economic history – was notably more thorough in her triangulation of information. Her diverse research techniques, consisting of participant observation (both passive and active), extensive field interviews, government data, industrial data, and regional newspaper coverage, gave me more confidence in her analysis and subsequently made me more receptive to her conclusions. I am not herewith saying that I therefore believe that the conclusions drawn by Young are necessarily more valid or ‘correct’ than those drawn by Mansfield. Rather I simply note that discussions which are light on empirical evidence are at greater risk of missing important considerations and/or nuances of the argument.

On a closing note, I admit that, whereas last week saw me delighting in Political Ecology’s determination to ground social, political, and economic analyses in biogeophysical realities, this week has opened my eyes to the precariousness – nigh impossibility? – of juggling such equally important factors with equal consideration. I don’t doubt that it can and has been done, but I am beginning to grasp more thoroughly the sheer amount of skill and resources that it must take to achieve.