Rural Sociology 66(4), 2001, pp. 532–556 Copyright © 2001 by the Rural Sociological Society Flexible Production on the Working Waterfront: The Social Origins of the Northwest Atlantic Sea Urchin Industry* Sean R. Lauer Department of Anthropology and Sociology University of British Columbia Abstract In 1986 the northwest Atlantic sea urchin was little more than a nuisance to local fishermen. Six years later, sea urchins were the second most valuable fishery in Maine, next the lobsters. This paper examines the initiation and early development of the northwest Atlantic sea urchin in- dustry. The industry is unique because of its quick growth and its reliance on international markets. On the basis of ethnographic research, I exam- ine the ability of firms already working in in-shore fisheries to adapt to the introduction of international markets for a new product. Institutional arrangements of the working waterfront facilitate these adaptations through technological and social flexibility. In addition, flexible adapta- tion to the sea urchin market was not inhibited by existing formal or in- formal institutions. This analysis of the sea urchin industry and the work- ing waterfront contributes to current discussions about small-firm networks and the economic sociology of industries. In 1986 a few fishermen along the northern New England coast harvested a small amount of sea urchins destined for an urban im- migrant market. Seven years later, harvesters landed more than 40 million pounds of sea urchin worth nearly $30 million. By 1993 the industry included thousands of people working in the harvesting, buying, and processing sectors. Much of this growth took place within the harvesting sector, with more than 1,700 harvesters from many different walks of life. One participant described the indus- try’s growth as follows: When the draggers and then the divers . started getting into it, it was like a field fire. You light a match, and then the smaller it starts. Everybody who had any kind of fondness [for] the water, some that didn’t even, . couldn’t even swim. It was . like a field on fire around here for a while. *I would like to thank Mil Duncan, Margaret Walsh, Denise Anthony, and Carrie Yodanis for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. A draft was first pre- sented at the 1999 annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, held in Chicago. A Rural Sociological Society Dissertation Research Award provided partial support for this research. Direct all correspondence to Sean Lauer, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, 6303NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC V6T 124, [email protected]. Northwest Atlantic Sea Urchin Industry — Lauer 533 Figure 1. Change in World Sea Urchin Landings and the Yen-to-Dollar Ratio Over the course of the industry’s history, more than one observer has described its development in similar fashion: as a gold rush, as a boom (Amory 1996). This dramatic growth can be explained in part by the opening of Asian markets to U.S. seafood products. The northwest Atlantic green sea urchin fishery is one of a number of new fisheries that have developed along the nation’s coasts over the last two decades (Lauer 1999a). Small-scale fishermen in coastal communities around the country are harvesting unusual species such as elvers, sea cucumbers, slime eels, and sea urchins for markets on the other side of the globe. Small-scale in-shore fisheries are not new to these coasts. The process and the product of these new fisheries, how- ever, signal a fundamental break with previous practices. Until the 1970s, the Japanese ate sea urchin roe harvested from local waters; a fixed international exchange rate made sea urchin fisheries out- side Japan uneconomical. In 1971 the international monetary sys- tem changed from a fixed to a floating exchange rate (McMichael 1996), and the value of the yen began to increase against other cur- rencies. This change made foreign goods cheaper for Japanese con- sumers, and non-Japanese sea urchin fisheries suddenly became economically viable (Muraoka 1990).1 The result was an increase in 1 In 1970, for instance, 360 yen could buy one dollar’s worth of U.S. goods. In 1993, 360 yen could buy over three dollars’ worth of U.S. goods. 534 Rural Sociology, Vol. 66, No. 4, December 2001 Figure 2. Change in East Coast Sea Urchin Landings (Metric Tons) world sea urchin landings following the increase in the value of the yen (see Figure 1). Accompanying this change in demand, local supplies of sea urchins grew in the early 1980s. Sea urchins are found primarily in the shallow sub tidal zone at depths of less than 30 feet on rocky, gravelly, or shelly ocean floors. In the early 1980s scientists ob- served an increase in urchin population density and geographic ex- pansion in the Gulf of Maine. One group of researchers watched as their study area changed from a diverse ecological community to an urchin barren.2 Similar processes were taking place around the Gulf of Maine. Commercial harvesting of ground fish decreased the number of natural predators for the sea urchin (Witman and Sebens 1992), and the lack of a commercial fishery for the sea urchin allowed populations to grow further (Steneck 1997). From 1985 to 1988, firms along the New England coast took ad- vantage of these changes in supply and demand and began to buy and export green sea urchins for Japanese consumers (Wilen and Wessells 1997). The industry developed quickly; in 1993 the green sea urchin was Maine’s second largest fishery after lobsters (Figure 2). The development of local supply and global demand for the northwest Atlantic sea urchin provided important resources for the 2 Lawrence Harris, personal communication. Northwest Atlantic Sea Urchin Industry — Lauer 535 initiation of the new industry. Supply and demand alone, however, fail to answer many questions about the development of the indus- try. In particular, how was the industry initiated, and how did it grow so quickly? Part of the answer lies in the productive processes found on the working waterfront. Between Supply and Demand In this analysis I examine the adaptation of small firms already working in in-shore fisheries to the introduction of international markets for a new product. I find that the initiation and growth of the sea urchin industry is a dynamic, historical process facilitated by the broader institutional context of the in-shore fishing industries along the northern New England coast, which I call the working waterfront. I focus on the organization of the industry: the activities that take place between supply and demand, such as harvesting sea urchins, landing the catch and transporting it to a processor, sepa- rating the eggs from the urchin, and bringing the roe to the Japa- nese market. I consider industries a particular type of economic in- stitution consisting of a set of firms in the same productive network, which compete with firms that provide similar services or products. The productive network includes the flow of goods, ser- vices, and resources among technically separable units that trans- form raw materials into finished products (Friedland, Barton and Thomas 1981; Tilly and Tilly 1998). Productive networks vary in the extent to which the activities are performed by the same or differ- ent actors (Stinchcombe 1983), and in the number of independent firms and the extent of competition between firms. The sea urchin industry is made up of those firms which conduct essential activities between resource and consumer, and which com- pete with firms that provide similar services. Industries themselves exist within a broader institutional context that DiMaggio and Pow- ell (1991) call an organizational field.3 The field is a recognized area of institutional life including marine and social scientists, environ- mental activists, local communities, state and federal regulatory agencies, and other fisheries, along with the firms that make up the industry. More than a collection of actors, the organizational field includes relationships among actors and organizations, which both enable and constrain possible actions (Granovetter 1985; March and Olsen 1989). In addition, actions are motivated by cultural practices, which are part of the background expectations of every- day life. These taken-for-granted practices enable and restrict possi- 3 Carroll and Hannan (1995) use the term organizational community to capture a similar idea ; McGuire, Granovetter, and Schwartz (1993) also offer a social structural account of the social construction of industry. I choose to use the organizational field concept because it adds a cognitive dynamic to these structural conceptions. 536 Rural Sociology, Vol. 66, No. 4, December 2001 bilities for action by dictating what is reasonable in certain circum- stances (Dobbin 1994; Zucker 1986). Farms, Fishers, and Flexibility This research belongs to a growing rural sociology literature that adopts a relational, embeddedness perspective rooted in economic sociology (Emirbayer 1997; Granovetter 1985). This perspective is an alternative to economic, rational-actor approaches to farm pro- duction (Lyson and Gillespie 1995), forest product industries (Hin- richs 1998), creation of social capital (Flora 1998), and exploitation and management of fisheries (Wilson et al. 1999). The present analysis contributes to this literature by examining the embedded flexible production strategies of in-shore fisheries. The discussion of flexibility in production is not new to rural so- ciology. On family farms, unpredictability in markets and nature, as well as the perishability of products, has led to uncertainty in labor demands and to flexible use of labor relations (Wilson, Harper, and Landerman 1994). This flexibility includes various combinations of husband, wife, children, and hired help who join in to complete tasks essential to production. Interestingly, some limitations on this flexibility are caused by distrust of nonfamily help (Wilson et al.