Constructing places for biodiversity conservation: A comparison between coastal and interior rural communities living within natural parks

Transcription

1 20 june 2015 EDISO - Coimbra Constructing places for biodiversity conservation: A comparison between coastal and interior rural communities living within natural parks

2 How new laws and policies aimed at changing person-place relationships are received by communities in the specific contexts where they are to be transformed into new practices? Through protected areas, the biodiversity conservation laws propose a hegemonic reconfiguration of space frontiers and uses (Corson et al., 2014). These laws conceive biodiversity conservation as contrasting (and bettering) development goals - unbalancing the dilemma (Billig et al., 1988) between nature and culture The accentuation of the dilemma can have consequences for the normaction relationship at the local level, namely delaying the appropriation of the new norms often new environmental laws are resisted because they conflict with local norms and practices (Hernandez et al., 2010; Mouro & Castro, 2012) Research focus

3 As investment and pressure for development can be different across regions, the unbalanced hegemonic proposal of the law can be appropriated at different velocities across contexts (Castro, 2012; Brondi et al., 2012) Coastal areas are locations where pressures for development and urbanization have traditionally been higher than in interior riverine areas Thus conflicts between local norms (what is valued and done) and the law may be stronger, and the pace of change slower in coastal areas As conflicts accentuate polemic representations, which close down possibilities for dialogue (Moscovici, 1988) We will compare representational and discursive processes mobilized by communities living in the two contexts to convey resistance and change Research focus

4 Hegemonic definitions of place may create contexts where resistance - and practices of social deviance - appear as legitimate and necessary (Dixon et al. 2006) This legitimacy can be expressed by members of the community in social tolerance towards illegal behaviour Hegemonic proposals are also often dealt with polyphasic, ambivalent accounts (Moscovici, 1976, Mouro & Castro, 2012) a subtle form of resistance as expressed ambivalence often emerges as a delayer of action (Castro et al., 2009) However, ambivalence and doubt seem also to be central to the process of reflexivity (Duveen, 2002; Kadianaki & Gillespie, 2015) that sustains adopting new practices An indicator of such negotiation and integration of new proposals is the hybridization of knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007) Research focus

5 To examine whether communities subjected to the same formal norms but with different contextual pressures produce distinct interpretations about the laws we will look at how two communities discursively present the laws and the local norms to Unveil specific conflicts/ misalignments between them Identify expressions of social tolerance towards illegal behaviour by the community Identify accounts of ambivalence and reflexivity towards the actions required by the laws And whether legal and local knowledge and practices are presented as irreconcilable or hybridized Research goals

6 Method Two contexts - small parishes in the SW coast and in the SE interior of Portugal. Both areas are regulated by Natural Park and Natura 2000 laws. Both sites are regulated by laws that restrict fishing activities, including closed periods and specifications on the species, sizes and amounts of fish than can be caught Coast interior

7 In-depth Interviews w/ open-ended questions, about traditional trades, the memories and descriptions of old and current practices Interviews with 33 residents (19 in the coastal area and 14 in the interior area) engaged in professional and recreational fishing, politics, local commerce, etc. Participants - 16 women and 17 men - ranged in age from 31 to 90 years. The interviews lasted from 20 to 120 minutes, were digitally recorded, and then fully transcribed. All the accounts referring to laws, local practices, relationship with institutional actors were identified and analysed from the perspective of resistance and change Method

8 PROCESSES Coastal site Interior site Community narrative Conflicts btw laws and local norms Globally, of decline anchored in golden years of intense trade/fishing Now - Professional fishing is threatened, it may continue with less restrictions - It requires knowledge transmission (but intergenerational gap) AND Minimization of the professional character of the trade grounding contesting the law and social tolerance to illegal behaviour - The laws are accommodated in the discourses, but few voices support regulations and change in practices - The Park is not used to refer to the place/geography, but instead to the authorities and is overtly critiqued - The laws are accommodated in the discourses, diversity in questioning intense fishing - The role of the park is locally disputed Ambivalence and reflexivity Hybridization of knowledge - no expressed ambivalence as a first-person public discourse - the descriptions of fishing practices indicate intense fishing without selfquestioning - Accounts of resistance to the proposals of other active and continued - Expressed ambivalence - Reflexivity regarding the impact of intense fishing and the need for restrictions - Use of ecology concepts combined with a dispute of the claim that there is less fish - Integration of legal science-based practices on local repertoire

9 COMMUNITY NARRATIVE Interior area not that much professionalism E4: my father was a fisherman. He fished also has a professional. ( ) I say professional as a way of speaking. Then, young still, at that time still with my grandfather ( ) they went on the boat, made a little bit of fishing (M-53y-recreational fisherman) E1: at 13 or 14 years ago I started, I always liked fishing very much ( ) I bought a little boat ( ) I used to fish with the rod, as an amateur ( ) now the professionalism is also not much. Or none. But anyway (M-59y-fisherman) and people are being pushed to deviance (social tolerance to illegal behaviour) E4: yes, and then there are all those taxes that are created, isn t it? ( ) E4: and then maybe one only goes fishing without it being a formal trade, sort of say. Fishing only at the time when there is fish, lamprey and others. One will strict to that. ( ) they are creating all these obstacles, there will be people, I mean, maybe people will go to the river to see if they can catch a few fishes, to make their day, but then there will be no more control. Or they will try, which I doubt. (M-53y-recreational fisherman)

10 Ambivalence and reflexivity Coastal area Descriptions of intensive fishing without selfquestioning EP That memory of the 200 kilos, when has that happened? E9 Pfff around 85, 87, 88, lets say it went until there was lots of fish lots of fish lots of fish. Not now. There is no fish at all there. ( ) E9 in the afternoon we will put there only 1500 hooks. And then we will pick it up tomorrow. EP You are going to put 1500 hooks? Its a lot of hooks E9 To see if we can catch some fish because you can catch one fish, 50 hooks, some will be caught (CV-M70y, fisherman)

11 Conflicts btw laws and local norms Coastal area - Voicing support to restrictive practices a closed period when Bream can t be fished [ ] they [the authorities] should have done it years ago, they ve done it too late now it is forbidden to catch the fish between January and March, but they [the fishermen] do it anyway, not so much but they do [ ] they forget that going there over and over again there s already less and less fish, it will end (CV-M76y, recreational fisherman) and the need for the fishermen to auto-regulate their practices I was telling them [other fishermen] the other day that they are the ones that should take care of this [ ] now this next three months they cannot catch barnacles, it s closed period. you should catch only in the summer, avoid destroying the small ones, then you could even choose and catch the better ones [ ] before I caught a lot, the rock was covered by barnacles [ ] now they should stop catching for two or three years [ ] not catching for a few months in not enough (CV-M51y, fisherman)

12 Ambivalence and reflexivity Interior area Disputing the role of the park EC: the park is something that brought changes to the everyday life here? E1- look, the difference for us is that occasionally they bug us, that s it. (risos) Ah, I have not many reasons to complain, here we don t have many reasons to complain because we do not have much. They do not want the fishing nets to catch the small eels. Those nets that kill off the species, isn't it? So they do not want it here. And occasionally they go up and down the river to see if they find one of those nets. Apart from that, they do not bug us that much. (M-59y-fisherman) EZ I think that was the beginning of it. ( ) because as catching the little eels was the only thing that compensated ( ) they despised the fishes and killed killed everything here. With the nets that didn t allow the other fish to spawn. ( ) E3 now its more difficult with those guys from the Natural Park. The natural park started to inspect EZ that s right, but if back then there was some real restriction to it, then maybe there would now be more fish in the river E3 I don't know. The dam also has a lot of influence on that. Back then the river had much more water than it has now. (E3-recreational fisherman and EZ-wife)

13 Ambivalence and reflexivity Interior area - Voicing support to restrictive practices the other day we were talking, here amongst fishermen, there were a bunch of them and they were saying that there is now more fish. It might be, it might be. But I think, I m not sure. It is a fact that the Guadiana (river) has gone through well sometimes us fishermen, too much inspection sometimes there are people who do not accept it well, that do not like it. But in fact there were years, many years on a row when the small eels were caught with a mosquito net. There were years, a large number of years when all full moons there was fishing of the small eels, and it was full of people fishing it. ( ) at a point, well, the inspection started. It was over. It was illegal, it was illegal. No more of these larger nets. But I think that it was very good at that time because the breeding fish died, a lot of things died trapped in those nets. Because a mosquito net is such a thing, only water went through it, nothing else did. So lots of things died in there. (E14-F45y, R fisherwoman)

14 Hybridization of knowledge Interior area Integrating the park s requests and re-apresenting these as own practices E4: concerning the species, they all the non-indigenous species, they want to finish off with them. So much so that they even asked us, and the club had a protocol with them for that, all those species that were caught [ ] the club made a protocol with the park with whom they committed to put those fishes in plastic bags and throw them to the bins. In the beginning, they went there, the park employees, the nature vigilantes, lets call them that, they showed up there. Now, lately they don t, the club does that on its own, there s this pickup truck, it is loaded and then unloaded up above. Most of the clubs collect all the trash, and so they tried to clean up this way (M-53y-recreational fisherman)

15 Comparing the coast and interior communities Similar narratives about decline, organized to reject restrictions on access to (biodiversity) resources and to accommodate as legitimate deviant practices, for continuity and survival Minimizing the character and consequences of what the law proposes as transgressions allows resisting the hegemonic representation of places for biodiversity conservation Discussion

16 Nonetheless, the encounters between the law and the local seem to have opened more space for alternative meanings and practices in the interior area than in the coastal area And ambivalence and reflexivity emerged as instrumental in this process of meaning negotiation as spaces of reflection where the debate is not closed (the role of authorities is still contested) but dilemmas can be rebalanced and hybrid representations accommodated Discussion