Community Empowerment Strategy Based on Social and Cultural Capital of Coastal Communities at Makassar Island

The study aims to (1) analyze the form and the function of social capital in fisher communities of Makasar Island (2) formulate a strategy of empowerment through reinforcement of social capital in fisher communities in Makasar Island. The methodological design used is a case study. The data is then analysed through descriptive-qualitative, an analysis carried out continuously from the collection of data until the investigation is completed. The study findings showed that the fisher communities in Makasar Island have social and cultural capital that can be identified on the forms of trust, values/norms, and networks in which each social and cultural capital has become a power for fishermen to survive and adapt to its environment. The results of this study also identify various problems related to the process of empowering fishing communities on the island of Makassar. The problems also become a constraint for fishermen to improve their business so that they obtain relatively low incomes. The problems are: firstly, the weakness on the use of technology so that the productivity of fishermen is relatively low and the small business scale, the second, the difficulty in business development because of the limited access to capital and the third, the poor of business management as the result of limited ability in business management. These factors then lead the fishing communities on the island of Makasar powerless to exploit the rich potential of marine resources.