The Implications for Participatory Fisheries Management of Intensified Commercialization on Lake Victoria

ABSTRACT Participation by stakeholders in fisheries management has become widely accepted. It is held that it increases both the effectiveness and the legitimacy of management. Many empirical studies of fisheries management, however, have found that political struggles over the profits from fishing drive management decisions. The present paper looks to sociological debates about agency, structure, and embeddedness for guidance in theorizing about the social dimensions of fisheries management in a way that considers both the need for participation and the political economy of the fishery. It argues that focusing on the effect that economic and political structures have on communications between stakeholder groups is one way to link participation and political economy, and we present the management of the Nile perch on Lake Victoria in Tanzania as a case study. The paper evaluates potentials for participatory management by asking how changes in economic and political realities affect stakeholders'claims about the resource, create social distances that affect communications, and privilege particular claims and perspectives. The paper concludes that management measures are undercut when they ignore the needs of groups excluded from the resource. Effective management of the Nile perch fishery is possible, but would require changes in the approaches of the responsible agencies.