Maritime anthropology

Based on 3 years of fieldwork in Southeastern Puerto Rico (SE PR), we report on data showing that Puerto Rican coastal resource foragers (CR foragers) have a distinct cultural model of well-being, when compared with their non-foraging neighbors. The CR foragers’ cultural model of well-being is directly related to the foraging lifestyle. It emphasizes independence, investment in social relationships, and enjoyment of the natural environment over the more stable access to higher income available in the formal economy. As such, we view this cultural model as an alternative to the individualistic/capitalistic model of continual growth and wealth accumulation. Building on previous analysis in which we found higher subjective well-being for coastal resource foragers compared with non-foraging neighbors as reported by García-Quijano et al. (J Anthropol Res 71 (2):145–167 2015), we find that the higher well-being of CR foragers compared with their non-foraging neighbors is consistent with Dressler’s (2018) framework of cultural consonance, in this case between what they value in life and what they are able to obtain through their occupation and lifestyle as CR foragers. We discuss the implication of our findings for coastal policy in CR foraging dependent locales such as SE PR.

Contrary to the idiom, people "at sea" have always been "at home." Since the Mesolithic and before, human communities have lived closely with the ocean, not simply as a domain to visit temporarily in order to extract resources, food, specimens, experiences, or literary analogies. Figurative depictions of seascapes as vast, unpeopled, and temporally constrained are at odds with the evidence depicted in this volume. Rather, oceans persistently constitute the principal organizing spaces through which many communities dwell in the world. In this volume, we present rich ethnographic data, both archaeological and anthropological, demonstrating the centrality of marine environments to the lives of peoples around the globe. While the majority of people experience the ocean as an alternative to a largely terrestrial existence, the voices we present in this volume tell a story with a very different emphasis. For these people, the sea "grounds" them in a way both fi gurative and literal. The book is decidedly Ingoldian. This is unsurprising, given that the volume sprung from a conference panel organized by a number of Ingold's students and where Ingold acted as the panel discussant. In particular, Ingold's notion of "meshwork" emerges as a binding feature of most chapters , albeit implicitly. The concept itself draws on the phenomenological characteristics of much of Ingold's anthropology, harnessing the metaphor of the "network" as a point of contrast with which to depict the fl uid and perpetual coming-into-being of creatures and materials:

The article argues that social researchers need a critical, locally situated and historically informed understanding of the categories of 'public' and 'private', in particular when carrying out research in post-socialist Eastern Europe. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the working lives of Bulgarian maritime workers, the article discusses a range of ethical fieldwork dilemmas encountered while negotiating field access, maintaining relations with gatekeepers, recruiting participants, establishing rapport, interviewing, gaining access to documentary evidence and exiting the field. The analysis focuses on the conceptual and practical boundaries between the 'public' and the 'private' and highlights the entanglement of the public and private spheres. The notion of 'returning insider' is developed and the implications of the returning insider's positionality are discussed in Bulgarian post-socialist context.

The sea covers most of the world, yet the world is conceptualized mostly through ideas and physical matter originated from the land. In this panel, we invert this order of thinking: we take the sea as the methodological, theoretical, and material tool for knowing and explaining the (social) world.

If you are interested, please submit your proposal by 7 January 2019

Occupant au début du XXIe siècle moins de 250 000 actifs pour l'ensemble du bassin méditerranéen, les activités halieutiques ont marqué l'histoire des sociétés littorales depusi l'Antiquité, conférant aux rivages de la mer Intérieure une identité spécifique. Ces activités ont connu d'importantes mutations à partir du XVe siècle, lorsque l'avènement d'innovations techniques radicales s'est conjugué avec une intégration croissante aux marchés urbains et au monde marchand. Réunissant de nombreux auteurs spécialistes de ces thématiques, cet ouvrage propose un éclairage sur les dynamiques qui ont marqué le monde de la pêche depuis la fin du Moyen Âge, mais aussi sur la nouvelle modernité que peuvent incarner les pêches artisanales face aux défis actueles de préservation de la ressource marine.

Le but de cet article est d’apporter une contribution à l’étude de la pêche artisanale au thon rouge par la madrague en Méditerranée. Il résulte d’une recherche ethnographique en cours, conduite auprès des derniers tonnarotti (pêcheurs de tonnara) de l’île de San Pietro (Sardaigne). Il s’agit d’une recherche comparative et multisituée (Italie et Espagne), qui se déplace entre histoire et ethnographie, pour relever et analyser ce qu’il reste d’une pratique en voie de disparition.

Situs web akan sebuah program penelitian dll tentang tradisi pembuatan perahu dan pelayaran masyarakat Kecamatan Bontobahari, Sulawesi Selatan. Banyak laman - banyak link!
A website on an upcoming program around the maritime traditions of the boatbuilders and sailors of tana Ber, Lemo-Lemo, Ara and Bira, South Sulawesi, in Indonesia (use GoogleTranslate!).  Lots of pages - lots of links!

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Indonesia, this article describes a conservation outreach project that attempts to educate and convert local people into coral protectors. Both coral and the sea-dwelling Bajau people appear to be amphibious beings, moving between a changeable land-water interface, and between different, fluidly interwoven ontological constellations. We show that the failure of conservation organizations to recognize the ontologically ambiguous nature of " coral " and " people " translates to a breakdown of outreach goals. Mobilizing the concept of amphibiousness to engage this ambiguity and fluidity, we describe the moving land-water interface as the actual living environment for both coral and people. The notion of amphibiousness, we suggest, has practical and political value, in particular for reconsidering outreach and how it may be reframed as a process involving ontological dialogue. For conservation outreach to become seaworthy, it needs to cultivate an amphibious capacity, capable of moving in-between and relating partly overflowing ways of knowing and being. Providing room for ambiguity, thinking with amphibiousness furthermore encourages suspension of the (Western) tendency to explain the Other, to fix what does not add up. As such, it is of heuristic relevance for the ongoing discussions of ontological multiplicity that have proliferated at the intersection between STS and anthropology.

Holbox: antropología de la pesca en una isla del Caribe mexicano es ante todo un estudio etnográfico que aborda la vida económica, social y cultural de los pescadores en una pequeña isla al norte de Quintana Roo, México. El trabajo se enmarca dentro de la especialidad que se ha dado en llamar antropología de la pesca o antropología marítima. Partiendo de un estudio de caso esta investigación aporta al conocimiento de las sociedades de pescadores a pequeña escala, la complejidad, deficiencias y cualidades de una actividad productiva, que en estricto sentido es una forma de vida. Se aborda el proceso de evolución de la pesca, la organización social en la isla, las estrategias de captura, el manejo de los recursos marinos y la organización de las cooperativas pesqueras.

Este trabajo aborda el tema de los pescadores artesanales, sus características sociales y el problema de la apropiación y administración de los recursos pesqueros. Se toma como estudio empírico a los pescadores de la costa michoacana, ubicada al occidente de México, que corresponde al Océano Pacífico. Se trata del análisis comparativo de dos grupos pesqueros que laboran bajo el mismo régimen estatal, instituciones de gobierno y regulación oficial pesquera, pero que se reproducen en distintos ámbitos socioculturales. Un caso está representado por los pescadores mestizos de Playa Azul, en la parte sureste de la costa, y otro está caracterizado por los pescadores de las comunidades nahuas del municipio de Aquila, en la parte noroeste. El contraste entre ambos casos ayuda a comprender las dificultades estructurales que impiden los arreglos comunitarios e institucionales, y los factores que favorecen la administración de los recursos pesqueros, de lo cual depende su preservación.