Bridging Gaps, Reforming Fisheries

Abstract

Scientific debates often revolve around the issues of ‘unbiased science’ with the majority of scientists keeping themselves at arm’s length from policy-making to ensure their credibility. Participatory research has been shifting these dynamics and has led to the emergence of research practices and advice frameworks that allow co-creation of common knowledge bases for management. This chapter, following the description of 14 cases of participatory research, places these cases alongside each other, compares and examines them as pieces in a larger puzzle to let us identify emergent patterns. In doing that, we draw on the analytical basis developed in Chapter 2. To understand what goes on in the transition zone between top-down management and participatory governance, we focus on i) participation, ii) knowledge inclusion and iii) institutional reform. What we are seeing is that the case studies, instead of becoming arenas for negotiating knowledge gaps and removing false preconceptions, worked much more pragmatically, allowing fishermen access to the resources of science. With the ongoing institutional reform, emphasizing stakeholder participation and the need for broader sharing of responsibility for management processes, fisheries governance is changing. We explore this change process through the concept of the “scientific fisherman” introduced in Chapter 2, a character who is actively involved in management decision making and a competent and acknowledged participant in the processes of mobilizing knowledge for management purposes.