Is Fishing Culture a ‘barrier’ to Contemporary Rural
Development?
Áine Macken-Walsh
Rural Economy Research Centre (RERC)
Teagasc
3rd November, 2009
Marine Institute
Overview
• Overview of contemporary rural
development
• Presentation of case-study: Iorras
Aithneach
• Socio-cultural barriers to engagement
• Appraising fishing culture: potential for rural
development
What is Contemporary RD?
“replacing material and labour value with design value”
(Ray, 2000)
• ‘Post-productivism’; ‘culture economy’; ‘innovation’
• ‘Governance’: Local people deciding the design & implementation of
development interventions
• Products: ‘alternative’ food; cultural tourism; and the management and
valorisation of local resources (Tovey, 2006; Lowe et al, 2008;
CORASON, 2009).
• Product attributes: ‘diversified’, ‘differentiated’, ‘niche’, high valueadded enterprises to cater for a “an increasingly discriminating
clientele” (Moseley, 2003)
Iorras Aithneach
Iorras Aithneach
• Unemployment ‘blackspot’ (Galway Co. Council,
2008)
• 49% of population in workforce, 29% of these
unemployed
• 15.9% (professional); 13.8% (construction); 11%
(agriculture, forestry, fisheries).
• High proportion of commuters, 63% no internet
access.
MFG
Category
Enterprise, crafts, local services
Training
Agricultural and Mariculture
products
Rural tourism
Environment, culture, heritage
Analysis and Feasibility studies
Trans-national
Inter-territorial
No category
Total
Funding
% of Total
€29,799.59
4.0685447
€96,547.67
13.181675
€1,250
€253,018
€271,414.61
€34,850.43
€6,671.56
€17,176.13
€21,710.56
€732,438.55
0.1706628
34.544604
37.056298
4.758137
0.9108696
2.3450609
2.9641476
100
Distribution of MFG
funding
Area
Carna
Cill
Chíaráin
Rosmuc
Acaill
No. Project No
Funding
% of total
Applications Projects
allocation
funds
Funded
4
2
€5,550.00 0.695978392
4
2
€7,341.00 0.920572501
1
44
1
32
€6,940.00
€329,430.58
0.870286494
41.31109287
Údarás na Gaeltachta
Category
Enterprise Grants
Natural Resource & Marine Enterprises
Food enterprises
Engineering enterprises
Service-based enterprises
Culture, Art & Craft Enterprises
Sub-total
Other Funding
Capital Investment (Buildings and Industrial
Space)
Community Development & Communitybased Enterprises
Sub-total
Total
Funding % of Total
€3,137,418
€1,128.893
€14,537
€1,576,837
€19,168
€4,749,089
66.06%
26.93%
0.84%
4.42%
0.25%
100
€5,136,029
90.75%
€523,214
9.39%
€5,659,243
€11,536,096
100%
‘Barriers’ to engagement
Iorras Aithneach: local discourses of
rural development
• Notable absence of references to the
contemporary rural development frame
• In-depth interviewing: discussions of rural
development framed within a discourse of
fishing and references to the loss of fishing
Iorras Aithneach: a fishing
community
“the local society… has defined itself as a fishing
economy. The interests and well-being of the
fishermen are seen as the interests and wellbeing of the entire area. Local people invariably
refer to the area in such terms as, “this is a fishing
area” and “everybody here dishes, it’s all they’ve
got” (Duggan, 2004, p.11)
Rural development as rural
change
• Understood as a ‘threat’, framed within
discourses of ‘resistance’
• ‘Tenacity’: long history of campaigns to
protect local fishing culture
• Fishing culture: a lynchpin for local
collective identity
Roots of ‘tenacity’
• Framed by socio-cultural forms of capital rather than
economic capital:
“to a greater degree than seen in large-scale approaches,
the fishing occupation is closely tied to the fishers’
personal and cultural identities. Among most small scale
fishers, fishing is perceived not merely as a means of
assuring one’s livelihood, but more broadly as a way of
life, indeed a way of life which is vivified by important
occupational values and symbols which in turn underscore
core aspects of small-scale fishers’ individual and
collective identities” (McGoodwin, 2001).
Three forms of capital
• Social capital: benefits and advantages
arising from membership is social networks
• Cultural capital: the way in which prestige is
subjectively ascribed to matter and action
• Economic capital: material wealth
Fishing culture & Social
Capital
• Assumption of ecological sensitivity: tactic of
community to preserve sustainability of resources
‘owned’ by community
• Collective subscription: accumulated over
generations
• Legitimacy: mobilisation of a discourse of
environmentalism
• Resilience/Non-compliance: cases where local
knowledge conflicts with ‘official’ methods towards
sustainability
Weakened social capital: a barrier
to contemporary rural development
• No identifiable locus:
“People from the dominant culture often accuse
those remaining in societies whose culture has
been eroded or destroyed of lack of initiative or
enterprise…The removal from the community of
control over its own destiny leaves a depleted
community without a belief in its won worth, its
own capacity to change things” (Bryden, 1991, p.
17)
Cultural Capital
• Source of ‘design-value’ for authentic rural
development
• Local people as ‘producers/guardians’
• Opportunity for cultural regeneration
Cultural capital: unique forms
of knowledge
• Place-based knowledge: reflective of local territory
& culture
• Forms of knowledge tied to fishing culture:
– Knowledge of fishing & local environmental, ecological
and physical territory
– Boat making: Huicéir, Gleóiteóg, Púcán
– Seaweed
– Arts, heritage & culture
‘New Paradigm’ Rural
Development
‘New Paradigm’
“transforming the roles of agriculture and fishing in rural
development, moving them from peripheral and dying to
central activities in rural places”
“restating rights and possibilities of rural inhabitants to
generate a livelihood for themselves from a sustainable
use of the natural, cultural and social resources specific to
their own rural locale”
Tovey, 2006
Positioning farming & fishing at the core of
rural development
• Tapping into cultural and social capitals:
– Stronger collective action
– Governing ecological benefits
– Cultural commodities
• Rural development that is more socially and
culturally acceptable & adoptable
Primary commodities: a path
towards viability
• Deepening: processing (salting, smoking); adding
variety; direct sale; new markets
• Broadening: incorporation of non-fishing, parafishing activities to core fishing activity e.g.
tourism
• Re-grounding: adding value through local social &
cultural distinctiveness (branding,
contextualisation)
Summary & Conclusion
• Core rural development discourses and legislation:
largely developed without reference to fishing
• Small-scale fishers are not engaging with new enterprise
supports from MFG LEADER, existing more traditional
supports to small-scale fishers are minimal/discontinued
• A remarkable tenacity, particular to small-scale fishing
culture, makes it resilient to economic change
• A strong local fishing culture holds forms of cultural
capital that are indeed conducive to RD
• ‘New Paradigm’ presents new realisations for
operationalising RD
Thank you