Rikke Becker Jacobsen

Analyzing resilience with communicative systems theory an example from European fisheries

The present paper argues that our understanding of the resilience of social-ecological systems can be improved by considering “communicative resilience” based on Communicative Systems Theory, which focuses on communicative action oriented to achieving mutual understandings. It further argues that it is possible to theorise and analyse resilience within complex social-ecological systems from this communicative perspective in a way that is very different from, but complementary to, agent-based approaches focussed on incentives. The paper presents data from multispecies mixed fisheries in Europe to demonstrate that the implications of institutional rules for SES resilience can be understood and improved upon by examining how institutions help or hinder the development of mutual understandings.

Small-scale fisheries in Greenlandic planning – the becoming of a governance problem

This article analyses an ongoing planning process in Greenlandic fisheries governance aiming to reform the coastal Greenland halibut fishery. It examines the way certain truths about this fishery and the need for reform are produced up to and in the final policy document ‘regulation concerning the coastal fishery for Greenland halibut’. Findings highlight the way the small-scale Greenland halibut fishery system becomes a particular governance problem with respect to particular contextual meanings of sustainability and long-term planning. The article then examines whether this governance problem could also be understood as primarily a problem to a certain ‘governmentality’ mode of governance. Whereas some fishery studies document how governmentality modes of governance in fisheries succeeds in transforming subjectivities, this study offers a view into the process that might go before successful governmentality: The process whereby a selected fishery becomes subjected to planned out-phasing through a combined construction of fleet and human identity.

When social sustainability becomes politics – perspectives from Greenlandic fisheries governance

This article approaches the topic of social sustainability as a discourse which holds potential for affecting fishery policy and investigates the extent to which this potential has actually materialised. The article identifies an Arctic social sustainability discourse and asks how it interacted with Greenlandic fisheries governance in the period from 2010 to 2012 when a major individual transferable quota (ITQ) reform was introduced into one of the largest coastal fisheries in Greenland: the coastal Greenland halibut fishery. The analysis is based on an impact assessment study of the ITQ reform, a self-reflexive discourse analysis of the social scientific production of truths relating to “Arctic social sustainability” and participant observation of the policy-making process. The article concludes that in the planning of the ITQ reform, the “truths” provided by the social sustainability discourse were deemed less relevant than the ones provided by competing discourses on biological and economic sustainability. The article suggests the possibility that the social sustainability discourse was dismissed because it was equated to a previously dominant political stance in Greenlandic fishery policy which the ITQ reform was meant to replace.

Pernicious Harmony: Greenland and the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines

Greenland appears well-positioned to implement the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines). Its existing national policies focused on human rights, food security, gender equity, and fisheries align with the objectives of the SSF Guidelines. Further, Greenland’s history of political support for small-scale fisheries gives reason that implementation is feasible. However, Greenland’s economic growth objectives via natural resource exploitation are in opposition to the SSF Guidelines and Greenland’s history of political support of small-scale fishers and fish workers. We show that small-scale fishers and fish workers in Qeqertarsuatsiaat, Greenland are in pernicious harmony with large-scale buyers. Through a representative survey among small-scale fishers and fish workers (N = 21), we find that small-scale fishers do not recognize large-scale buyers as resource competitors. Beyond recognition, such a configuration between government, small-scale fishers and the large–scale sector underestimates the small-scale sector’s capacity for innovation, hinders profit margin growth and market diversification, and perpetuates inequality between the large- and small-scale stakeholders. Our results demonstrate that, while Greenland may have a track record of implementing progressive human rights policy, implementing the SSF Guidelines requires reconciling competitiveness and understandings thereof, in Greenland’s fisheries. By highlighting blind spots in Greenland’s small-scale fisheries governance and management, we anticipate our study will help serve as a starting point for re-harmonizing Greenland’s small-scale fisheries policy design together with local, national and international objectives.