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Local Institutional Responses to Global Market Pressures: The Sea Cucumber Trade in Yucatán, Mexico

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Date
2018-02-01
Authors
Bennett, A
Basurto, X
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Abstract
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd The expansion of global seafood trade creates opportunities as well as risks for small-scale fisheries (SSFs) livelihoods. Markets provide economic opportunity, but without effective governance, high demand can drive resource degradation. In the context of small-scale sea cucumber fisheries in Yucatán, Mexico, this study documents local governance responses to new markets and identifies factors driving those responses. We conducted a comparative case study of two SSF communities, collecting participant observation and interview data during 16 months of fieldwork. Our study found that local rules-in-use did not match government regulations and that the emergence of local rules was shaped by relations of production in each study site. Specifically, patron–client relationships promoted an open access regime that expanded local fishing fleets while fishing cooperatives attempted to restrict access to local fishing grounds through collective action and multi-level linkages with government. We propose that the different material incentives arising from the way that patron–client relationships and cooperatives organize labor, capital, and profits help explain these divergent governance responses. We hypothesize that this finding is generalizable beyond the study context, especially given that patron–client relationships and cooperatives are common throughout the world's SSFs. This finding builds on previous research that indicates local institutions can mediate the effects of market pressures, showing that the emergence of local rules depends on how resource users are organized not just in relation to resource governance but vis-à-vis the markets themselves. Therefore, effective policies for SSFs facing market pressures require a greater emphasis on regulating local-level trade and governing the commercial aspects of fishing livelihoods. These lessons are relevant to the estimated 540 million individuals whose livelihoods SSFs support who may increasingly engage in the global seafood trade.
Type
Journal article
Subject
Social Sciences
Development Studies
Economics
Business & Economics
market pressures
small-scale fisheries
local institutions
sea cucumber fisheries
patron-client relationships
cooperatives
FISHERIES MANAGEMENT
FISHING COOPERATIVES
POPULATION-DENSITY
MARINE
EXPLOITATION
CONSERVATION
GOVERNANCE
RESOURCE
ECOLOGY
ACCESS
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18603
Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.09.006
Publication Info
Bennett, A; & Basurto, X (2018). Local Institutional Responses to Global Market Pressures: The Sea Cucumber Trade in Yucatán, Mexico. World Development, 102. pp. 57-70. 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.09.006. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18603.
This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Scholars@Duke

Basurto

Xavier Basurto

Associate Professor of Sustainability Science
I am interested in the fundamental question of how groups (human and non-human) can find ways to self-organize, cooperate, and engage in successful collective action for the benefit of the common good. To do this I strive to understand how the institutions (formal and informal rules and norms) that govern social behavior, interplay with biophysical variables to shape social-ecological systems. What kind of institutions are better able to govern complex-adaptive systems? and how can societies (la
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