Svein Jentoft is Professor Emeritus at the TBTI 1 T BTI GLOBAL BOOK SERIES Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT LIFE ABOVE WATER - The Arctic University of Norway. His long career as a social scientist specializing on fisheries management and fisheries communities has yielded numerous articles and books. He has led and been involved in many international projects, working in the Global South as well as in the North. He also LIFE ABOVE has a long time interest in the conditions of indigenous peoples in Nicaragua and his native Norway. In 2018, he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a ʻFriend of Small-Scale Fisheriesʼ award at the 3rd World Small-Scale Fisheries Conference in Chiang WATER Mai, Thailand. Jentoft is a founding member of TBTI, and has been leading a working group on ʻGoverning the Governanceʼ and a research cluster related to the ʻSSF Guidelinesʼ. In that capacity, he has edited and authored several TBTI books and articles. ʻLife Above Waterʼ, his latest contribution, inaugurates the new TBTI Global Book Series, which aims to highlight why we need to pay close attention to small-scale fisheries. SVEIN JENTOFT TBTI GLOBAL BOOK SERIES ESSAYS ON HUMAN EXPERIENCES OF SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES BY ISBN 978-0-88901-494-7 SVEIN JENTOFT SVEIN JENTOFT Life Above Water Essays on Human Experiences of Small-Scale Fisheries Copyright © 2019 by Svein Jentoft All rights reserved Published by TBTI Global This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License ISBN 978-0-88901-494-7 TBTI Global Book Series 1 Too Big To Ignore (TBTI; toobigtoignore.net) is a global research network and knowledge mobilization partnership supported by over 550 members from around the world. The network aims at elevating the profile of small- scale fisheries, arguing against their marginalization in national and international policies, and developing research and governance capacity to address global fisheries challenges. TBTI Global Book Series is a new publication series that aims to highlight why we need to pay close attention to small-scale fisheries. The series will be of use to anyone interested in learning more about small-scale fisheries, especially about their important contribution to livelihoods, well-being, poverty alleviation and food security, as well as to those who are keen to help raise profile of small-scale fisheries in the policy realm. Cover illustration: Landing site in Chennai. Photo by Steef Meijknecht, Chennai, India. Cover graphic design by Rod Thistle, St. John's, Canada. Production manager for the TBTI Global Book Series: Vesna Kerezi. Contents Foreword v Acknowledgements vii Introduction ix List of Reprints xix List of Acronyms xxi 1. Why Social Science of Fisheries 3 2. Beyond Rational Choice 13 3. Poverty: Come Together 18 4. Differences Matter 24 5. Where There Is a Will 33 6. A Social Contract for Fisheries? 41 7. Imagining the Future 50 8. Remoteness and Alienation 57 9. The Litmus Test 62 10. Co-management – Go for it 67 11. The Devil in the Detail 74 12. No Magic Bullet 83 13. Researching Co-management 89 14. The Human Rights of Small-Scale Fishing 103 15. People Healthy Fisheries Communities 109 16. Beyond the Veil 115 17. Roots and Wings 122 18. Life Above Water 134 19. Saving Lives 149 20. A Virtuous Cycle 159 21. Why MPAs? 172 22. What is Governance, Anyway? 183 23. Limits to Governability? 195 24. Being Well, Doing Well 206 25. A Leveled Playing Field 216 26. Holistic Approaches 221 27. Overlapping Consensus 233 28. The Agony of Choice 245 29. Words Matter 258 30. Blue Justice Now! 274 References 289 List of Photos 307 Foreword The complex and dynamic world of small-scale fisheries means that several topics about this important sector can be approached from a wide range of perspectives, and many different ways of talking and telling stories about them can be imagined. I could not think of a better way to do it than what Prof. Svein Jentoft has done in his essays. Neither could I think of a better way to launch the new TBTI Global Book Series than with this publication. As a global research network on small-scale fisheries, TBTI has produced several books, journal articles, and reports on key aspects of small-scale fisheries, geared mostly to academic audiences, the research community, and policy-makers. It has always been our ambition, however, to publish books and articles for the general public as part of our contribution to raise awareness about small-scale fisheries and elevate their profile in policy discourse. For manyofus who have long been immersed in the world of small-scale fisheries, we often lose sight of how they are seen, perceived, and understood by others. We wonder, for instance, why their values and contribution to global goals like food security, poverty alleviation, livelihood viability, social cohesion, cultural identity, and ecosystem stewardship are not being appreciated and accounted for in the decision-making process. We are frustrated when policy-makers do not seem to be paying attention to our research and our ‘sciences’. Some of us also feel restrained from making bold statements that might be taken for advocacy, or from sounding like we are romanticizing small-scale fisheries. This book, ‘Life Above Water,’ written by one of the founding v members of TBTI, Prof. Svein Jentoft, offers thoughtful reflections on many of these issues and questions. The book is a compilation of essays that Prof. Jentoft has written throughout his long career. Although some pieces were written more than 20 years ago, the topics are very relevant to the current situation in small-scale fisheries and the challenges facing fisheries governance today. His essays provide the public with a way to understand the ‘why’ question of social science research, at the same time encouraging fellow social and transdisciplinary scientists to continue to work towards making real change on the ground while maintaining scientific integrity. Some of the stories he told and the experience he shares should make us pause. Is it possible, for instance, that after all the lessons and the knowledge produced about small-scale fisheries, we still apply the same management tools and approaches that may work in one context (e.g. in industrialized fisheries in developed countries) to bring ‘order’ to small-scale fisheries worldwide? True to form, Prof. Jentoft calls attention to the fact that small-scale fisheries of the Global North suffer a similar fate as those in the South, under poor policies and governance intervention. Yet, much of the tragedy and mismanagement can be avoided - and he spells out how. For those reading about small-scale fisheries for the first time, ‘Life Above Water’ brings to the fore the meaning and value of small- scale fisheries and why we should care about them. Together with researchers, practitioners, and organizations working in support of small-scale fisheries, we can imagine a better future whereby small- scale fisheries are no longer ignored. Ratana Chuenpagdee St. John’s, Canada vi Acknowledgements As a proud member of the Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) Global Partnership for Small-Scale Fisheries Research, I appreciate the opportunity for this book to be included in its publication portfolio. I am particularly grateful for the help of the TBTI coordinator Vesna Kerezi for turning these manuscripts into a nicely designed book, and for the edito- rial assistance and constructive comments of the TBTI director Dr. Ratana Chuenpagdee. As always, Brennan Lowery provided excellent language editing. I am also happy for the invitation from my colleague and friend Professor José Pascual-Fernández to come to University of La Laguna in Tenerife, where I spent two months preparing the manuscript. I thank Sebastian Mathew of ICSF (The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers) for generously allowing me to reprint articles that I published in SAMUDRA Report. Thanks also to Aaron Lerner of The American Fisheries for the reprint permission. I am similarly grateful for the permission to include the chapter ‘Social science in fisheries management: a risk analysis,’ (here with the title ‘Why social science of fisheries?’), reprinted here by permission of Springer Nature. Chapter 2, ‘Beyond rational choice’ appeared first in The Common Property Resource Digest, reprinted here by permission of the editor. vii Intr�������������� Social scientists have made fisheries a research topic for more than a century, and they still have important contributions to make… Every country with a coastline, a lake, and a river of a certain size, have people and communities that rely on fishing for their well- being. I bet that in all these countries there will be people working in universities or other knowledge institutions who find fisheries interesting, fascinating, and important, and who will spend time, ix sometimes their entire career, getting to know them and helping to sustain them. Thus, there are many of us who share this interest. We are a bigger community than we tend to believe, and with TBTI (Too Big To Ignore) we also have a network and a partnership. It is one of the greatest blessings of my now long career in fisheries social science research that I have colleagues, some of them previous students, around the whole world who I know personally, with whom I have worked and who are my friends. According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), more than 90 percent of people employed in fisheries are in small-scale fisheries. They are often poor and marginalized, andthe sustainability of their communities is therefore not secure. That may also have negative consequences for the many services they provide to society, most notably food security, but also employment and income.