Fishing Less to Gain More: Autonomous Self-Limitation as a Strategy for Sustainability. The Case of Small-Scale Fisheries Co-Management in Catalunya, Spain

Keywords: Fisheries, Limits, Co-management, Sustainability, Degrowth
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 65

Abstract

The idea of external environmental limits to human activity is fundamental to the mainstream debates on sustainability. Geographers and political ecologists have long engaged critically with this idea, in particular by analysing how the defense of external environmental limits to human activity has often been an ideological cornerstone for processes of enclosure, exclusion and of the production of scarcity. There is also a considerable research on the the technical difficulties and uncertainties in scientifically determining the limits themselves or on the political and ecological implications of their socially constructed nature. However, there is little research on the progressive character of the collective articulation of autonomous self-limitation practices and on of their potential to deliver better and fairer socio-ecological outcomes. In this paper, we look at how small-scale fisherfolks participate in co-management committees by regulating and limiting their own activity in the context of the socioecological crises of fisheries in Catalunya, Spain. In this case study, we found that socio-environmental change and the idea of limits are linked by an iterative process of constant redefinition through daily practices on the ground. And in conclusion, we argue that autonomous and collective self-limitation practices can be an emancipatory alternative to the reactionary defense of limits in the pursuit of more just, desirable and sustainable socio-ecological futures.