The influence of small-scale fisher organization in household adaptive capacity and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Baja California Sur, Mexico

Keywords: adaptive capacity, resilience, livelihoods, small-scale fishers, institutional analysis, COVID-19, cooperatives, collective action
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Situated in critical human geography approaches to the concept of livelihood resilience and traditions of institutional analysis in SES research, this study assesses how cooperative and noncooperative fishers in Baja California Sur have responded to major social and environmental changes of the 2018-2022 period and especially the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze detailed baseline survey data from 2018 on the livelihood conditions that prevailed for fishers working in four types of economic entity on a continuum from strong cooperative to assymetrical patron-client relationship. Drawing on literatures on global SSF response to the pandemic, we develop metrics for expected levels of adaptive capacity of the surveyed fishers in each type of economic entity. We then use a combination of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key informants in 2022 to document and examine actual adaptive or coping responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their outcomes for fisher resilience and well-being (in terms of income, food security, and health) two years after the initial shock of the pandemic. Data collection and analysis are currently underway, but the paper will present findings that contribute to our understanding of the benefits and limits of horizontal forms of collective action for small scale fishers experiencing conditions of external economic and political stress. The study also demonstrates some of the limits of the concept of adaptive capacity for predicting actual response actions and their impacts on fisher livelihoods in a single region.