Social Complexity, Ethnography and Coastal Resource Management in the Philippines

Social networks and transitions to co-management in Jamaican marine reserves and small-scale fisheries

“…While our findings apply explicitly to Jamaica, they are also germane to a wide range of contexts given the global expansion of MPAs and MPA networks (see Spalding et al, 2013) where similar social relational challenges and opportunities are bound to occur (e.g., Crawford et al, 2006;Fabinyi et al, 2010). The results are also likely to apply to many fisheries, reinforcing past research showing the importance of social capital and leadership in fisheries comanagement (Gutierrez et al, 2011;Pomeroy et al, 2011;Ayers and Kittinger, 2014;Levin and Richmond, 2014).…”

Social-ecological systems, social diversity, and power: insights from anthropology and political ecology

“…Third, methodologically, utilizing approaches that allow people to reflect on "the meaning of things" or their own interpretations of their and other's resilience, knowledge, adaptive capacity, and agency can add a new, little-explored dimension to resilience science (see Duit et al 2010 for further reflections on conceptual and methodological choices in SES research). This could, for example, involve a greater engagement with ethnographic and other qualitative research methods (Fabinyi et al 2010(Fabinyi et al , 2014. Finally, conscientiously steering away from the normative bias often associated with resilience thinking, and focusing on the practical application and empirical outcomes of resilience in practice (whether good or bad overall and for specific societies, groups, and individuals) could inform a more grounded understanding of SES resilience.…”

“…More broadly, distinctions between people who are of different age, gender, class, and ethnicity, who belong to families with different status, and who have varying levels of interest in resource use are some of the more important cleavages within any community that frequently may be identified but for the purposes of broader analysis tend to be glossed over or simplified under the general categories of "local community" or "fisher/farmer" (Walker 2001, Eder 2005, Fabinyi et al 2010. The specific implications of this shift in the view of the "community" for the SES model are that the social aspect of the SES is composed of contested and diverse human interests (Cleaver 2000, Armitage andJohnson 2006).…”

Food security and the Coral Triangle Initiative

“…Even basing MPA networks around customary tenure arrangements can be problematic, including (1) where tenure is contested; (2) where the likely fishery benefits from spillover may accrue more to neighbouring groups than to those bearing all or most of the economic penalty of a closed area [51], or (3) where community capacity and responsiveness to externally driven conservation initiatives are highly variable [52]. Designating a fifth of the near-shore resources as no-take areas, based primarily on biodiversity criteria (as is proposed in the CTI RPOA, 2009) is a target that will need to be substantially modified to accommodate the challenges posed by (1) oceanographic heterogeneities (spatial and temporal) in primary production and fishery production (e.g., [53,54]), (2) political and cultural diversity of the region, and (3) the widespread and complex development handicaps within CT member states (discussed above and below).…”