Browsing by Author "Smith, H"

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    Ecology and the science of small-scale fisheries: A synthetic review of research effort for the Anthropocene
    (Biological Conservation, 2021-02-01) Smith, H; Garcia Lozano, A; Baker, D; Blondin, H; Hamilton, J; Choi, J; Basurto, X; Silliman, B
    © 2020 Elsevier Ltd Human-driven changes to aquatic environments threaten small-scale fisheries (SSFs). Ensuring a livable future for SSFs in the Anthropocene requires incorporating ecological knowledge of these diverse multi-species systems beyond the long-standing reliance on populations, a management paradigm adopted from industrial fisheries. Assessing the state of ecological knowledge on SSFs is timely as we enter the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science and Sustainable Development and with the upcoming International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture. Synthesizing research effort can help identify existing knowledge gaps and relatively well-researched ‘bright spots’ that can inform strategies to achieve global sustainability commitments. Yet trends in ecological research of SSFs are not well understood compared to better-studied industrial fisheries. To address this void, we conducted a synthetic review of SSF publications in ecology journals (n = 302), synthesizing trends in research subjects and methodologies over time. Wide geographic and habitat disparities in the coverage of publications are identified, with marine fisheries in Latin American receiving the greatest coverage while inland and Asian fisheries are understudied relative to the global distribution of SSFs. Bony fish and invertebrates received substantial coverage compared to endangered cartilaginous fishes. Studies have increasingly focused on human dimensions and ecosystem ecology compared to earlier emphasis on population ecology. Methodologically, studies rarely incorporate experiments despite their efficacy in testing interventions. To achieve a ‘wider view’ of fisheries that is reflective of the needs of SSFs in the Anthropocene, future ecological studies should expand their geographic, taxonomic, and methodological breadth to better assess understudied SSF interactions.
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    Rethinking scale in the commons by unsettling old assumptions and asking new scale questions
    (International Journal of the Commons, 2020-01-01) Smith, H; Basurto, X; Campbell, L; Lozano, AG
    © 2020 The Author(s). Scale is a powerful concept, a lens that shapes how we perceive problems and solutions in common-pool resource governance. Yet, scale is often treated as a relatively stable and settled concept in commons scholarship. This paper reviews the origins and evolution of scalar thinking in commons scholarship in contrast with theories of scale in human geography and political ecology that focus on scale as a relational, power-laden process. Beginning with early writings on scale and the commons, this paper traces the emergence of an explicit scalar epistemology that orders both spatial and conceptual relationships vertically, as hierarchically nested levels. This approach to scale underpins a shared conceptualization of common-pool resource systems but inevitably illuminates certain questions and relationships while simultaneously obscuring others. Drawing on critiques of commonplace assumptions about scale from geography, we reread this dominant scalar framework for its analytic limitations and unintended effects. Drawing on examples from small-scale fisheries governance throughout, we contrast what is made visible in the commons through the standard approach to scale against an alternative, process-based approach to scale. We offer a typology of distinct dimensions and interrelated moments that produce scale in the commons coupled with new empirical and reflexive scale questions to be explored. We argue that engaging with theoretical advances on the production of scale in scholarship on the commons can generate needed attention to power and long-standing blind spots, enlivening our understanding of the dynamically scaled nature of the commons.
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    Weaving governance narratives: discourses of climate change, cooperatives, and small-scale fisheries in Mexico
    (Maritime Studies, 2019-04-01) García Lozano, A; Smith, H; Basurto, X
    © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. In the coming decades, accelerating processes of climate change are expected to impact the world’s fisheries. These changes will likely exacerbate ongoing challenges in the governance of small-scale fisheries, which play a significant role in supporting livelihoods and food security throughout the world. Among fishers in Mexico, the perceived impacts of climate change on coastal fisheries are increasingly salient. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the realities of climate change and other socio-environmental phenomena are discursively co-produced by fishers and government actors in a distinct type of political arena: the general assemblies of federated fishing cooperatives. Fishing cooperatives in Mexico organize into regional-level federations, which in turn form national-level confederations. Confederations are therefore multi-level, nested organizations for collective action and political representation. Here, we examine the interactions between fishers and federal government officials in the 2016 general assembly of one confederation, which represents 25 federations with 338 cooperatives. The general assembly of the confederation serves as a political space for open democratic participation among members and, in this case, discussions between fishers and government representatives. The discourses employed by fishers and government actors reveal tensions about the role of the state, the purpose of scientific knowledge in resource management, and the nature of the cooperative small-scale fishing sector. Insights from this case are used to advance discussions about the value of examining discursive practices to gain insights about fisheries policy, through a critical discussion of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. We theorize discursive practices as part of politicized performances that coalitions of actors use to express policy preferences and weave together governance narratives, which are useful for understanding positions and broader debates at the national level.