Local Institutional Responses to Global Market Pressures: The Sea Cucumber Trade in Yucatán, Mexico
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 articleSubject
Social SciencesDevelopment 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
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18603Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.09.006Publication 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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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Xavier Basurto
Truman and Nellie Semans/Alex Brown & Sons Associate Professor
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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