Managing inequality: the political ecology of a small-scale fishery, Mweru-Luapula, Zambia

This paper starts from the perspective on resource management approaches as based upon a body of environmental knowledge. By analysing fisheries management in Mweru-Luapula, Zambia, we argue that this body of environmental knowledge has (i) remained largely unchanged throughout the recent shift to co-management and (ii) is to a great extent based upon general paradigmatic conventions with regard to common property regimes. We therefore simultaneously studied the historical trajectories of both resource management as the political ecology of Mweru-LuapulaU+2019s fishing economy. Using a relational perspective U+2013 by looking at interaction of the local fishing economy with external developments, but also by examining socioeconomic relations between individual actors U+2013 this study exposes constraints and incentives within the local fishing economy that are not absorbed in the current co-management regime. These findings challenge both policy goals as community-based resource management itself. We therefore argue that governance of small-scale fisheries U+2013 in order to close the gap between locally based understandings, policy and legislation U+2013 should always be built upon all dimensions (social, economic, ecological, political) that define a fisheries system.

Publication year:2013

Accessibility:Open