Conflict and exclusion in Northern Brazil's marine fisheries: relational perspectives on governance and access

Artisanal fisheries play a crucial role in sustaining livelihoods and providing high-quality protein to millions of people in the Brazilian Amazon coast. However, artisanal fishers’ livelihoods are threatened by declining fish stocks, the privatization of coastal and ocean areas, and exclusion from decision-making processes. This thesis examines how exclusionary governance in marine fisheries in Bragança, Pará, northern Brazil, perpetuates unequal access to fish and fisheries for artisanal fishers. Drawing from scholarship in fisheries management, political ecology, and marine social sciences, the thesis posits that the state's inability to support and protect the livelihoods and well-being of artisanal fishers, combined with the monopolization of fishery resources and benefits by a local fishing elite and the erosion of local representation to address these issues, perpetuates inequality and marginalization of fishers along Brazil's Amazonian coast. The thesis explores these issues in an introduction and three empirical articles.
The thesis first traces key historical elements pertaining to marine fisheries governance in Brazil, and in the Amazon region in particular, which directly impact artisanal fishers' access to fish and fisheries in contemporary times. Article 1 presents a systematic review analysis of the literature in marine social sciences, which explores the main themes and methodological approaches used in the study of ocean and marine conflicts. Article 2 uses a participatory network mapping approach (adapted from Schiffer & Hauck 2010) and builds on the Theory of Access (Ribot & Peluso 2003), to examine local actors’ perceptions of how current fisheries governance affects artisanal fishers’ ability to access fish and fisheries in Bragança. Article 3 is a case study of the governance of the large-scale pargo fishery (Caribbean red snapper, Lutjanus purpureus). Drawing on key stakeholders’ perceptions on the state of the pargo fishery and its governance, Article 3 examines how competing narratives reflect distinct views and approaches to equity. It emphasizes the marginalization of fishers' voices and concerns in decision-making processes.
By analyzing the dynamics of access struggles in artisanal fisheries in the Brazilian coastal Amazon, this thesis argues for the recognition of the multidimensional nature of exclusion in fisheries -exclusion no longer as a mere absence of rights, but as a dynamic, contested and relational process embedded in broader governance contexts. This perspective challenges reductionist conceptualizations of the Brazilian amazon’s marine fisheries as open access systems ensuing from a supposed historical absence of the state. Formal coastal and marine governance in the Brazilian Amazon has historically operated and operates in a way that essentially restricts or obstructs artisanal fishers’ access to fish and fisheries. Meanwhile, other fishing actors, who are often capital-intensive, exert greater control over access to fishing resources and benefit disproportionately from their use. This thesis concludes that equity considerations need to be more explicitly incorporated as a normative concern into fisheries governance frameworks in the Brazilian Amazon region. This requires a shift to an access-enabling governance for artisanal fisher(ie)s. Only by recognizing that ecological viability is conditioned to social equity, attuned to the lived realities and political agency of those most affected, can sustainable fisheries be achieved.