Untangling the drivers of community cohesion in small-scale fisheries

Sustainable fisheries require strong management and effective governance. However, small-scale fisheries (SFF) often lack formal institutions, leaving management in the hands of local users in the form of various governance approaches (e.g., local, traditional, or co-management). The effectiveness of these approaches inherently relies upon some level of cohesion among resource users to facilitate agreement on common policies and practices regarding common pool fishery resources. Understanding the factors driving the formation and maintenance of community cohesion in SSF is therefore critical if we are to devise more effective participatory governance approaches and encourage and empower decentralized, localized, and community-based resource management approaches. Here, we adopt a social relational network perspective to propose a suite of hypothesized drivers that lead to the establishment of social ties among fishers that build the foundation for community cohesion. We then draw on detailed data from Jamaica’s small-scale fishery to empirically test these drivers by employing a set of nested exponential random graph models (ERGMs) based on specific structural building blocks (i.e., network configurations) theorized to influence the establishment of social ties. Our results demonstrate that multiple drivers are at play, but that collectively, gear-based homophily, geographic proximity, and leadership play particularly important roles. We discuss the extent to which these drivers help explain previous experiences, as well as their implications for future and sustained collective action in SSF in Jamaica and elsewhere.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  The International Journal of the Commons

• Publication date

  2018-04-23

• Fields of study

  Sociology, Business, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.18352/IJC.843
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• Multiple drivers were implicated in the formation and maintenance of community cohesion in small-scale fisheries.

  Confidence 0.89

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• Gear-based homophily, geographic proximity, and leadership emerged as particularly important drivers of community cohesion.

  Confidence 0.96

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• Nested exponential random graph models were used to empirically test hypothesized drivers of social ties among fishers in Jamaica's small-scale fishery.

  Confidence 0.97

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review

• community cohesion

  social concept

  The degree of social cohesion among fishers that supports agreement on common policies and practices for shared fishery resources.

  Aliases: cohesion

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• gear-based homophily

  network mechanism

  Tendency for fishers using similar gear types to form social ties with one another.

  Aliases: gear homophily

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• geographic proximity

  network mechanism

  Closeness in physical location among fishers or fishing communities that can shape social tie formation.

  Aliases: spatial proximity

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• leadership

  social factor

  The presence of influential individuals whose social position can help structure ties within the fishing community.

  Aliases: leaders, leader influence

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• nested exponential random graph models

  method

  A sequence of exponential random graph models fit in nested form to test hypothesized network drivers of tie formation.

  Aliases: nested ERGMs, ERGMs

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review
• small-scale fisheries

  fishery sector

  Locally managed fisheries with limited formal institutions, used here as the setting for the Jamaica case study.

  Aliases: SSF, SFF

  박진우 (dztg5apj7m) extractionAK (4715169a40) reviewKiller Whale (322360f1c1) review뀨 (7c402c1b98) review

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