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Agricultura, sociedad y desarrollo
versão impressa ISSN 1870-5472
agric. soc. desarro vol.14 no.3 Texcoco Jul./Set. 2017
Articles
Fishing permits and gender relations in Isla Arena, Campeche
1 El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Unidad Campeche. Av. Rancho Polígono 2-A, Ciudad Industrial. 24500. Lerma Campeche, Campeche, México (muc@ecosur.edu.mx), (dmolina@ecosur.mx), (jcperez@ecosur.mx), (fgurri@ecosur.mx).
2 Desarrollo Rural, Colegio de Postgraduados, Carretera Federal México-Texcoco Km. 36.5, Montecillo, Texcoco. 56230. Estado de México, México (vvazquez@colpos.mx)
To understand decision making by men and women within the framework of the property rights allows adopting policies that promote equality in the use of rights of access to fishing resources and, as a whole, to more efficient measures in regulation, leading to sustainable development. The objective of this article is to document the transfer of fishing permits from men to women in Isla Arena, Campeche, and to discuss whether this generates modifications in their access and control of fishing resources. From an ethnographic approach, participant observation, a survey with domestic units, and interviews with key informants linked to fishing activities were carried out. It is argued that decision making of women permit holders is associated to the purpose of fishing (commercial or subsistence), the family composition, and the type of participation of women in fishing activities. This study contributes inputs for the incorporation of gender perspective in the sustainable management of fishing resources.
Key words: rights of access; gender; artisanal fishing; decision making
Comprender la toma de decisiones de hombres y mujeres en el marco de los derechos de propiedad permite adoptar políticas que promuevan la igualdad en el disfrute de los derechos de acceso a recursos pesqueros y, en conjunto con medidas más eficientes de ordenamiento, conducir al desarrollo sustentable. El objetivo de este artículo es documentar la transferencia de permisos de pesca de hombres a mujeres en Isla Arena, Campeche, y discutir si esto genera modificaciones en su acceso y control a los recursos pesqueros. A partir de una aproximación etnográfica se realizó observación participante, una encuesta a unidades domésticas y entrevistas a informantes clave vinculados a la actividad pesquera. Se argumenta que la toma de decisiones de las permisionarias está asociada al propósito de la pesca (comercial o subsistencia), a la composición familiar y al tipo de participación de las mujeres en las actividades pesqueras. Este trabajo aporta insumos para la incorporación de la perspectiva de género en el manejo sustentable de los recursos pesqueros.
Palabras clave: derechos de acceso; género; pesca artesanal; toma de decisiones
Introduction
Fishing management regimes involve a set of rules through which the rights, duties, incentives, expectations and conducts of those who are devoted to this activity are shaped and alternated. Rights are an important aspect of the institutions in which the fisheries operate (Huppert, 2005). The fishing permits establish rights of access and allow managing fisheries, defining who can fish and who cannot (Charles, 2005).
Access can be promoted through the legal path –de jure– or through local norms and customs –de facto– (Rocheleau et al., 2004). In a broader sense, the following rights are part of property rights: access (entering a fishery or fishing area), capture and exploitation (right to a specific amount of effort), management (right to regulate the users’ patterns of use), exclusion (who has the right of access), and alignment (allows the transfer or sale of the right). These are accumulative and allow observing social patterns of economic organization (Charles, 2005; Poteete et al., 2012).
In official discourses, the rights of use are promoted as a path to contribute to planning and to making fishing conservation more effective (FAO 2012; Charles 2005); however, these measures privatize the access to fishing resources (Acheson, 2000) because they limit the number of people who can gain access to them (Jentoft, 2004; Huppert, 2005). The State establishes a series of requirements to grant fishing permits; for example, to own the means of production, process that excludes most fishermen and women because those who fulfill the requirements tend to be merchants with higher economic power, as happened in Bahía de Kino, Sonora (Cinti et al., 2010).
The privatization of fishing resources through granting permits tends to benefit men, since women are not considered active users of natural resources and their access to them is restricted (Fraga, 1999). This situation promotes the absence of women in decision making related to the management of fishing resources (Kleiber 2014). Ngwenya et al. (2012) document that in Botswana the fishing policy and intervention programs have led to increasing the inequalities between women and men in the control and access to fishing resources. This happened because the government fostered the creation of fishing unions to provide them with jobs, and the incorporation of women who traded and processed fish was excluded from such organizations.
In Iceland, Skaptadóttir and Proppé (2005) found that in the implementation of the system of transferable quotas the government considered exclusively men. Although not all of them have quotas, in the domestic units where they do have them, the husbands are the ones who decide on the rent or sale of the quotas, marginalizing women and diminishing their power of decision.
In México, CONAPESCA, which depends on the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock Production, Rural Development, Fishing and Food (Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación, SAGARPA), is the institution in charge of regulating the fishing activity and managing the permits3. Jointly with the fishing planning programs and the management plans, permits are part of the fishing policy legal instruments4. The commercial fishing permits can be granted to natural or legal persons of Mexican nationality, of legal age. The number of permits is related to the number of individuals, boats or fishing techniques that are applied to the capture or extraction of one or several species in a specific zone or period, and is established from indicators or availability and conservation of fishing resources contained in the National Fishing Charter (DOF, 2012).
Since 1930, with the government interest to promote the participation of cooperatives in industrialization, permits were given in a privileged manner to fishermen organized in cooperatives to capture reserved species such as shrimp, abalone, lobster, sea bass, Pismo clam, and totoaba. With the 1992 Fishing Law, framed in a neoliberal approach, in discourse privileges a rational management of fishing resources, and the regime of reserved species for cooperatives disappears (Soberanes-Fernández, 1994). This made it possible to transfer the fishing permits to private individuals. These rules are reflected in daily life; particularly, in the decisions that men and women make regarding natural resources, since the domestic units are articulated within a context of global economic policy (Leach et al., 2004); in this case, the neoliberalization of natural resources (Doyon and Sabinot, 2015).
The objective of this article is to document the transfer of fishing permits from men to women in Isla Arena, and to discuss whether this transfer generates modifications in the access and control of women to fishing resources. Although it has been documented that gender differences in property relationships are important for the management of resources (Rocheleau et al., 2004; Leach et al., 2004), and that owning property can lead to feminine empowerment (Agarwal, 1999; León, 2008), it should be highlighted that this is not automatic. There are other factors that intervene in this process, such as the purpose of fishing (commercial or subsistence), the family composition, and the type of participation of women in fishing activities. This study highlights the importance of taking into account these factors to move towards a sustainable fishing policy with gender equity.
Methodology
The field work comprised three periods. During the first phase, which took place in May 2014, open interviews and participant observation were performed, which allowed identifying the local organization related to fishing, who they are and how they participate in it, as well as aspects to consider for the elaboration of a survey applied between June and September 2014. This survey, titled “Fishing Survey of Ecosur-Isla Arena”, allowed understanding aspects related to the type of permits and the subsidies that the permit holders have received. The sample was made up of 62 domestic units, in which men and women who work in some of the phases of the fishing productive system were surveyed: capture, disembarkation and/or processing. As a result, there were a total of 112 informants over 18 years of age, 79 men and 33 women. The questionnaires were applied separately to men and women to avoid interference in their responses.
The third period of information gathering took place in October 2014. At that time, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 16 women and 11 men, to delve into aspects related to the forms of use of the fishing permits and the organization of the domestic unit. Domestic units of permit holders were identified through the technique of “snowball” (LeCompte and Schensul, 2013); for this purpose, the process started with women permit holders identified during the survey, who referred other women permit holders. In total, 14 women permit holders were identified and it was possible to interview 12 of them. The men interviewed were fishermen with and without permit who were identified through the same technique.
The survey was captured directly in tablets, with the support of capturing masks elaborated with Access, according to the methodology suggested by Gurri et al. (2015). The systematization and analysis of the survey was done with the SPSS hardware. Registering the open and semi-structured interviews carried out during the first and third phase of the field work was done with a digital recorder. Each interview was transcribed and later codified in NVivo10.
Isla Arena, study zone
Isla Arena is located in the northern extreme of the state of Campeche, in the municipality of Calkiní. Geographically it is a peninsula, 2 km long and 150 wide (Gómez, 2005). The first human settlements in the island date from 1861, with Maya people from Yucatán and Campeche as the first indigenous inhabitants, descendants of Yaqui and Beliceño indigenous people (Castillo, 2013). Currently there is a population of 754 people, located in 203 inhabited households (INEGI, 2010).
Isla Arena is part of the Ría Celestún Biosphere Reserve, which presents a diversity of environments in a relatively reduced space and whose plant composition is considered to have an excellent degree of conservation (SEMARNAT, 2002). This zone is ecologically relevant because it is located in the most important estuary of the northwestern basin of underground water in the Yucatan Peninsula, coinciding with the ring of cenotes. It is part of the coastal corridor of the best conserved wetlands in the western part of the Yucatan Peninsula, together with the “El Palmar” State Reserve in Yucatán and the Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve in Campeche, and the Ría Celestún Biosphere Reserve in Yucatán (SEMARNAT, 2002).
Up until 1999, when the highway was built, the population remained in relative isolation and the commercial exchanges with the neighboring community of Celestún were carried out by sea. The highway allowed the implementation of electric energy, drinking water and sinkholes, which represented an important change in the quality of life of the population (Gómez, 2005). The high concentrations of salts dissolved in the soils make impossible establishing grazing areas (SEMARNAT, 2002), as well as agricultural farms, situation that restricts the inhabitants of the island in having crops and backyard animals for self-supply (Méndez, 2005). This fact is important to understand the role of riverside fishing as socioeconomic axis and its link with the requirement of the fishing permit to carry out the activity.
Artisanal fishing is practiced in this island. The main species captured are octopus (Octopus maya), crab (Menippe mercenaria), bonnethead (Sphyrna tiburo), sharpnose shark (Rhizoprionodon terraenovae), ray (Aetobatus narinari); various sea snails: true tulip (Fascilaria tulipa), Florida crown conch (Melogena corona), milk conch (Strombus costatus), Caribbean crown conch (Melongena melongena), Florida horse conch (Pleuroploca gigantea) and West Indian chank shell (Turbinella angulata). Scale fish are characterized by being multispecific, that is, the capture includes several species, and among them the following stand out: seatrout (Cynoscion sp.), king mackerel (Scomberomorus cavalla), common grunt (Haemulon plumieri), common snook (Centropomus undecimalis) and flathead red mullet (Mugil cephalus) (SEMARNAT, 2002; Castillo, 2013).
Fishing permits in Isla Arena
With the creation of the National Fishing Charter in the year 2000, having a fishing permit becomes essential to fish in the national territory. Some requirements to obtain permits are to show proof of the legal disposition of goods and equipment to perform the activity (DOF, 2012), as is the case of boats, engines, and fishing equipment; also to show proof of legal personality and having the certificate of license, among others. Legally the law does not contemplate their sale; however, they can be transferred to another person. The permits have a validity of two years; after this time, the title holder has to pay to renovate it.
For Isla Arena permits are issued for scale fish, snails, octopus and shark. In 2014, CONAPESCA registered 357 fishermen and 126 permit holders, that is, in the official registry of people who work in fishing, 35 % of them have fishing permits. From the field registry of the 14 permit holders, it is inferred that at least 11 % of the permit holders are women5.
The socioeconomic organization of the locality is related to the way in which each person is related to the fishing process, from the capture to the commercialization, as well as with the fishing permits and the possession of the means of production or fishing equipment. A “free fisherman” or “fisherwoman” is a person who does not have the permit to perform the activity, but who works under the protection of a permit holder. The “permit holder” is the person who holds the title of at least one fishing permit, even when he/she does not necessarily perform the capture, so that they may hire another person to fish in their boats. The “traders” are permit holders with a higher number of vessels and workers in their charge; they are not devoted to capture and have warehouses and containers to store the fish received. It can be said that there is a social hierarchy where the permit holders have been favored by the State to carry out fishing activities, while the “free” fishermen or women depend on other people to carry out this activity.
For fishermen and women there are several reasons why it is important to have a fishing permit. One of these is related to the legal practice of the activity, since it allows having the certainty that when the Ministry of the Navy performs inspections, it will not confiscate their boats because they have the corresponding documentation to carry out the capture.
There is nothing better than having the permit and sleeping soundly because you know that you can go fishing, that you are not going to have problems other than those in nature, such as north winds, or an engine breaking down (Permit holder, 44 years).
The permit gives greater power in decision making to those who have it, regarding how much and who to sell the fishing production to, which allows obtaining higher economic gains.
You can sell your product a little better, compared to the fisherman who works for another boat that does not belong to him (Woman permit holder, 54 years).
However, this does not translate into independence of the permit holder from the trader, and much less of the fisherman from the permit holder or trader. When the octopus season begins, the permit holders or traders, whatever the case may be, grant loans to the fishermen, situation that commits the latter to deliver their catch to whoever granted the loan, thus guaranteeing also the debt payment. The loans are used for the provisioning of vessels, which includes the purchase of jimbas –bamboo rods–, cords, weights, bait and gasoline.
The fishing permits also allow the permit holders access to a portfolio of subsidies such as the supply of riverside gasoline, acquisition of vessels and substitution of engines (Table 1). For the first, a card is delivered with a sole sum of 2800 pesos and for every liter of gasoline two pesos are discounted. For the second, the producers receive up to 40 % of the total cost of the goods to be acquired. Finally, for the substitution of outboard engines of up to 115 HP, the maximum sum for support is 90 000 pesos, and 50o000 pesos for vessels of less than 10.5 meters of eslora6 (DOF, 2013). It should be mentioned that, according to the information provided by an agency of marine equipment distribution, the cost of a 115 HP two-stroke engine is 224 271 pesos and four-stroke 324o050 pesos, while the cost for a boat is 165 100 pesos.
Table 1 Subsidies received by men and women permit holders in Isla Arena, Campeche (n=30).
Subsidio† | Permisionarios/as beneficiados/as |
---|---|
Gasolina ribereña | 31 % |
Sustitución de motores | 16 % |
Baja captura | 66 % |
Source: Fishing Survey Ecosur-Isla Arena, June-September 2014.
† The men and women permit holders can obtain more than one subsidy.
The subsidy known as “low catch” is handed out in the month of July in a joint manner between SEPESCA and the municipal government. It is granted at a critical moment: low scale fish production; therefore, less fish filets and on the eve of the beginning of the octopus season. This subsidy has a sole financial sum that is distributed between all permit holders; however, because there has been an increase in permit holders annually, the sums they receive have been decreasing. The fishermen without permit also receive this subsidy, but in smaller numbers. The permit holders are granted 9000 pesos and the “free agents” are given less than half of that (4200). Particularly, this program was an incentive for the transfer of permits towards women as a mechanism to obtain higher income through subsidies to the domestic unit; thus, women receive the subsidy of permit holders and the men the subsidy for fishermen.
They give it [to the women] so that they get double backing. As a man, if I have four permits I give one to my wife, to my daughter and to my other daughter ; that way, when the backing comes I have 4000, plus 400… 16 000 pesos ; because my daughters are single, and they live with me. My neighbor has a permit and, what did he say? I am going to give it to my wife and I will sign up to collect as fisherman (Woman permit holder, 36 years; eight years with a permit).
Island women permit holders
Of the 12 women permit holders identified, nine are from Isla Arena and three are from the state of Yucatán. Regarding their marital status, nine are married, two single and one widow. Nine of the families of the women interviewed are nuclear and three are extended. Nine have permits for scale fish and octopus, two for octopus and one for snail. Although this initiative was promoted by the men, the women agreed for the fishing permits to have their name. Obtaining the fishing permits by these women was through two paths. The first is related to the dissolution of cooperatives, moment when the partners, at the time of withdrawing from them, distributed the permits and some of them transferred them to family members, in certain cases to women. This began to happen since 2005. Seven women permit holders described having received the permit under these circumstances. It was not identified that women received the permit any other way (Table 2).
Table 2 Transfer of permits to women after the dissolution of cooperatives.
Persona que cedió el permiso |
Número de casos |
---|---|
Padre | 3 |
Esposo | 3 |
Hijo | 1 |
Total | 7 |
Source: field work, October 2014.
Five women obtained the right to fish through the second mechanism identified, which was purchasing it. The purchase was made in credit and they paid between 30 000 and 70 000 pesos. The average time it took to pay the debt was two years, as a woman permit holder describes, who bought the permit together with her husband:
We bought it from a man in Campeche, and it was difficult, it took about two years; it belonged to a friend and we paid it in installments, until 30 000 pesos were paid (Woman permit holder, 46 years of age, 1 year with the permit).
In order to purchase the permit, families organized themselves around the fishing work (Table 3). In a domestic unit that corresponds to an extended family work was carried out jointly: the father and eldest son (married and a father himself) fished and the wife would fillet the fish. The money earned from fillets served to pay the fishing permit.
Table 3 Family organization for the purchase of the permit in the same domestic unit.
Tipo de organización | Número de casos |
---|---|
Trabajo pesquero de padre, madre e hijo | 1 |
Trabajo pesquero de esposo y esposa | 1 |
Trabajo pesquero femenino | 1 |
Trabajo pesquero masculino | 2 |
Total | 5 |
Source: authors’ elaboration from field work, October 2014.
In another case, of a nuclear family, the money to pay the permit was raised through fishing and the sale of fish by the wife. Only one case was reported where the woman permit holder purchased the permit herself. It is a single woman, 29 years old, from an extended family. She is a fisherwoman and has a permit for octopus; in her domestic unit there is another fishing permit, for which the brother and father work the boat. In the other two cases, the money to pay for the permit came from the men’s fishing work, that is, the women did not contribute financially to purchase the permit7.
From the perspective of the women, the permit was transferred to them for two reasons: a) as a mechanism of inheritance; and b) to transfer the responsibility of performing the paperwork related to the permits. The single woman who bought the permit is not in any of these categories, since a transfer was not made for the permit because she acquired it on her own (Table 4). Having said that, beyond these two reasons that the women identified as a pillar in the decision for the transfer, an aspect that is cross-sectional in these arrangements is financial motivation, since having the permits is something that strengthens the reception of economic resources by the families.
Table 4 Causes and kinship relationships in the transfer of permits to women.
Motivo | Persona que transfirió | Número de casos |
---|---|---|
Herencia | Padre | 2 |
Esposo | 5 | |
Trámites | Esposo | 5 |
Compra directa | Ninguna | 1 |
Total | 12 |
Source: authors’ elaboration from field work, October 2014.
Permits as inheritance: the vision of a family patrimony
Of the 12 women permit holders seven reported that the fishing permit was transferred to them to ensure an inheritance. Two women, who are sisters, obtained the permit from their father. The first lives in a nuclear household and has two underage children. The permit was transferred to her after she was married. The second sister lives in the extended family, is single and does not have children, she lives with her parents. Five women obtained the permit through their husbands. They are part of nuclear families. The youngest woman in this group is 44 years old and the oldest, 60. Their husbands are active fishermen.
The explanations regarding the permit as inheritance are related to the risk in the fishing activity, and the fear of dying at sea, leaving the family unprotected. In this regard, an informant mentioned having told his wife: I am going to give you yours [the permit], what if I die some day and what if I didn’t give you your part (Permit holder, 55 years old). Another woman mentioned that the permit is a gift from her husband (Woman permit holder, 51 years, two years with the permit). Among those who made the decision under this perspective, the permit guarantees a patrimony that in this case of contingencies such as diseases can be sold with relative ease due to the demand there is to acquire permits.
Permits as a scheme for paperwork: transference of activities to women
The four remaining women reported that the permit was transferred to them so they could carry out the paperwork associated to the right to fish. The paperwork implies going to the fishing office to make arrivals, as well as to travel to Calkiní or Campeche to renovate the permits. Other aspects that they must solve are those related to the document of maritime security, and to collecting subsidies, attending meetings organized by the fishing authorities or local fishing committees, as well as attending the training from the National Service for Safety, Innocuousness and Agrifood Quality (Servicio Nacional de Sanidad, Inocuidad y Calidad Agroalimentaria, SENASICA). About the fact that the permit was transferred to women, we found testimonies such as the following where the woman permit holder expressed that this condition represents a load of tasks for women, particularly because of the paperwork and trips they have to make:
Terrible, terrible, because it is tedious, it is annoying to take all the documentation. You have to go to Campeche and come back because they don’t give you information, you have to take your papers; when there are programs you must do this, you must do that (Woman permit holder, 41 years, 6 years with the permit).
The explanations of men and women informants describe the lack of interest of fishermen to carry out paperwork: he has almost no patience for paperwork, to wait in SAGARPA, over there in Capitanía, he doesn’t like to do any procedure, and that’s why I did all the trips (Woman permit holder, 48 years). The errands associated to the permit constitute an extension of the fishing activities. As a response, the families reassessed their work organization, delegating to women the paperwork while the men focus their efforts in fishing to avoid losing work days, and, therefore, income: if he had been in charge, he would have to go, sometimes for two days, miss his fishing to take care of the paperwork (Woman permit holder, 46 years, three years with permit). For women, taking charge of performing the paperwork translates into an extension of the domestic tasks.
Decision making in fishing work
Those who make decisions arrange who to sell the fishing production to, or the destination of the income, whether for the family diet or to invest it in fishing. Because this is mostly in the hands of men, the sphere of fishing assumes that making these decisions falls on them; however, this is modified to a certain degree between the women permit holders. In Isla Arena it was identified that there are differences between the women who make these decisions and those who do not, allowing their characterization in the following way:
Women permit holders who do not make decisions. The three women who make up this group described that their husbands are the ones who make the decisions related to fishing. They are not involved in fishing work; each one explains from her own perspective the motives for this situation. In the first case, she has health issues, which restricts her from participating in fishing. Although the second one worked for a while in filleting, she abandoned the activity because of family trouble. The third one expressed her lack of interest for fillet work.
The ages of these three women range between 46 for the youngest and 57 for the oldest, resulting in an average age of 51 years. They have in average two years in possession of the permit and they are, in comparison to the other women permit holders, the ones who have been performing this role for least time. Fishing is performed with the purpose of subsistence and the boats are worked by the husbands. Only in one of the three cases, during the octopus season, a worker is hired.
The families of these women are nuclear. Regarding the family life cycle, the youngest woman has a school-age son and two older ones, who are fishermen. The second woman permit holder has an adult son, who is devoted to fishing. In the third case the woman permit holder has children who are adults but live off the island. These families have adult children who contribute financially to the domestic units; in addition, fishing is focused on subsistence. These characteristics are not an incentive for the incorporation of women into fishing activities, nor do they have an impact on decision making in issues related to the permits by women permit holders.
Women permit holders with intermediate decision making. Two women are part of this group; one of them works in filleting, is 60 years old and is a widow; the boat is worked by her son. The other is 55 years old and sells fish and shellfish; the boat is worked by her husband. In both cases fishing is carried out for subsistence. The decisions that these women make are focused only in the activities that they perform: filleting and sale of shellfish, but it does not transcend towards investment in fishing, for example. In the first case, her son makes the decisions and in the second, her husband: While I am alive, it is mine, so-to-speak, but the permit is in her name (Fisherman, 62 years old). In this regard, a woman mentions: It is not mine, it is theirs [her sons’], but they have it to my name (Woman permit holder, 60 years, 6 years with the permit). This comment reflects that even when the permit is in their name, for some women it does not belong to them and, therefore, this restricts their decision making.
Women permit holders who make decisions. Seven women permit holders mentioned participating in decision making: we have talked about how we are going to work, who with, what we are going to do with the engine, if we need to sell it to get one of better quality (Woman permit holder, 48 years, three years with the permit). The age range of these women is 29 years for the youngest and 48 for the oldest; the average age is 40 years. Five of the seven women that make up this group have six to eight years with the fishing permit; the other two have less than three years in possession of the right. The average number of years owning the permit is 6 years.
In the domestic units of the seven women who make up this group, there is a second permit to the husband’s name and for the octopus season, workers from neighboring communities are hired. Five women are actively involved in the tasks related to unloading and commercialization; for example, receiving the day catch, weighing, refrigerating and transporting fish and shellfish, paying workers, buying inputs, and selling the product to intermediaries. Of the other two, one fishes and the other sells fish – fresh and cooked – in a community near the island.
Although transferring fishing permits responds to economic reasons and for women it is a relief of tasks that men carry out, even a “gift” to face future contingencies, the fact that women are involved in this phase of the fishing process represents for families, and particularly for men, the possibility of optimizing the human and economic resources that the domestic unit has, because in these domestic units fishing is carried out for commercial purposes and workers need to be hired. The involvement of women is necessary; in fact, they are willing to expand the type of activities that they perform.
With regards to family composition, the two single women and one of the married ones live in extended families; these women do not have school-age sons and daughters. Of the four women who have nuclear families, three have school-age sons and daughters. The number of children is two to four. Having sons or daughters studying high school or college represents a greater expense, since the young people need to travel to other cities to continue with their studies because in the island only up to secondary school is available. When performing the productive and reproductive activities, the different family members are involved. Regarding the family organization and the participation of the husbands, a woman permit holder describes her experience:
We both work. During the octopus season when he fishes, work begins [in the warehouse] at one in the afternoon; by that time, I have finished everything in the house, I have picked up my daughter from preschool, I have cooked. Starting at two in the afternoon, I can go meet the men [fishermen] who arrive, I weigh, I pay them, I sell, I collect payment, and everything. During the scale fish season, the men arrive at six in the morning from the verge, and he is the one who gets up early. We get organized (Woman permit holder, 36 years old, eight years with the permit).
The domestic unit is a space for negotiation, but also for conflict, as one woman permit holder describes in her opinion about the organization of fishing work:
Sometimes my husband does not agree with something and since I am the one who manages it, then, we do have some problems because sometimes we do not agree about something. Of course, since he goes fishing, he doesn’t see the problems with the fishermen. He practically does not have patience with the fishermen and I understand the way each of them is (Woman permit holder, 41 years; 8 years with a permit).
Although the women have ownership of the right of property, decision making is nuanced by different factors. In the first place there are fishing activities that women perform, which in turn are related to the family life cycle, since it can be seen that women with school-age children are the ones most involved in fishing work because there is the need to increase family income, situation that drives them to carry out tasks such as filleting and/or trading fish, in addition to being younger women compared to the others. On the other hand, families with these characteristics are the ones who lean towards commercial fishing, where it is even necessary to hire fishermen. It is observed that the women with more time as permit holders are the ones who have a higher capacity for decision making, for they are the ones more involved in fishing processing, commercialization and administration, in addition to increasing their access to the public sphere and the spaces of power as the years go by.
Learning: exploring the fishing world
Becoming involved in fishing work has allowed women to have knowledge related to the maintenance costs of fishing equipment and the prices that fish and shellfish are expected to reach at the beginning of the fishing season:
I just had an overhaul done on my engine that cost me eight thousand pesos. If you are going to buy the reef you spend up to 25 thousand. Let’s assume resin, fiberglass, paint, another four thousand… Eight thousand pesos. If we have to buy weights we spend 50 to 70 pesos per kilogram; we must purchase reefs, strings, sleeves for the drain, paint for the names; we have to repair shipments, and we spend around 15 thousand pesos per boat. The one who spends least is 10, eight thousand pesos (Woman permit holder, 44 years; eight years with a permit).
For the other women, for example those who have recently obtained the permit, having this right to fish represents the opportunity to become involved in the maritime world, and to acquire new knowledge:
It is a great responsibility that has been good for me to learn, grow; I didn’t know anything about fishing, paperwork. Now I have knowledge of it and it is not bad to learn more (Woman permit holder, 51 years; two years with a permit).
Being women permit holders has brought with it the opportunity of occupying positions in the local fishing organizations, as is the case of three women who were elected by the permit holders to represent them. The women described that the tasks they perform are linked to paperwork. On the other hand, in the testimonies of informants dissent was found with regards to having fishing permits transferred to women, indicating that the correct situation is for permits to be only in men’s names, for there is a perception that only they work on the boats. This allows observing the weight of the sociocultural norms, where it is considered that decisions related to fishing work should fall on the masculine figure. Other comments show that there is dissent regarding the inequities in the concentration of economic capital in some families and allows observing the social stratification of the families in the island based on their financial goods and the property rights they possess:
Well, as a fisherman I say that the system is being tampered with because it is not fair; something is being diverted that can help another fisherman. For example, if I have a permit I can acquire another one and I give it to you as my wife. I give it to her and you go collect another fund when it shouldn’t be that way (Registered fisherman, 44 years old).
Discussion
In Isla Arena the modifications to the Fishing Law (1992) facilitated the transference of fishing permits to private individuals. In a neoliberal economic model, as is the Mexican case, the possession of fishing permits is restricted to the sectors with highest economic power and which are not always fishermen or women (Cinti et al., 2010). To obtain higher income through the subsidies, to ensure a patrimony for the families and to become organized in relation to fishing work, new schemes in the social practices of ownership, possession and rights on the resources were created inside the domestic units, such as the transfer of permits to women. This transference is mediated by kinship relationships, in relation to the formal system of fishing permits (Nunan et al., 2015), and they influence the patterns of property and control of fishing resources of men and women (Makalle, 2012).
The transfer of permits to women represents a mechanism that allows fishermen and their families to obtain better prices, as well as to attract higher subsidies. Regarding this point, Fernández (2013) mentions that in Costa Rica the permit holders report wives and close family members without connection to fishing work as day laborers, with the aim of increasing their income in the low-catch season. In Turkey it has been documented that if the husband works for the government, and because those who do cannot have a second job, the vessels are registered in the name of wives to obtain commercial fishing licenses. Although the women work in subsistence fishing activities and the licenses are in their name, they do not participate in the activities that the cooperatives carry out (Göncüoğlu and Ünal, 2011).
The risk that is characteristic of fishing work and the possibility of death of the principal provider stimulate the search for mechanisms that guarantee income for the families (Islam and Chuenpagdee, 2013). In Isla Arena, one of these mechanisms is the transference of fishing permits to women; in this way, the permanence of the permit is guaranteed, which is conceived as a good that can be inherited in the domestic unit and ensure the family’s patrimony, particularly of the wife, especially in an environment where there is a lack of social security (Britton, 2012). The transference of fishing permits to women is also inserted in the logic of work division that allows men to continue with the workday at sea, while he delegates the paperwork to his wife, which represents an extension of their domestic tasks and brings with it a work overload for women.
Fraga (1999) points out that at the moment of assigning fishing property rights men are benefitted and the asymmetries in power relations are accentuated, situation that has emphasized the absence of women in decision making related to resource management (Kleiber, 2014). The information obtained in Isla Arena allows observing that property rights can be the starting point to understand women’s decision making power, and together with other factors such as the family composition, the purpose of fishing (subsistence or commercial), and the fishing activities that women perform.
It should be highlighted that this study centered its analysis on domestic units where women are the holders of commercial fishing permits and that the next challenge is having a broader panorama that allows understanding decision making in domestic units where men and women do not have a fishing permit or else only men are permit holders, not only in Isla Arena, but also in other geographic contexts.
The characterization of women permit holders allows observing that women who make decisions are part of domestic units where fishing is done with commercial purposes and which have the economic capital that allows them to hire workers, particularly during the octopus season. They participate actively in activities related to fishing work, taking part not only in the processing phase, but also in the acquisition of inputs or the purchase-sale of fish. This exemplifies that the financial contribution of women has a positive impact in decision making (Fay-Sauni et al., 2008), as was reported by Nunan (2006) in Uganda, where the promotion for women to acquire licenses for vessels caused for them to increase their income and with it they began to make decisions and to speak about things that affected them as women.
The women who make decisions have school-age sons and daughters, representing a higher expenditure for the families, and therefore results in the search for other sources of income. This information agrees with what was found by García Sámano (2015) for the same study site, who found that although the families have fishing permits, not all perform the same productive activities due to the differences in the sociodemographic composition (age and sex) of the domestic unit. In other localities, such as the northern coast of Ireland, Britton (2012) found that the women’s power of decision making linked to the fishing industry is related to sociodemographic variables such as age and educational level, the local context and external factors; thus, the increase in economic costs derived from the crisis in fuel motivated the decrease of the white fish fleet, situation that motivated the closing of fish factories where women worked.
Although they process and trade fish, some women permit holders only have power of decision in the activities that they perform, but they are not involved in the activities or income derived from the administration of fishing permits. Even if they receive them as inheritance or as a “gift”, they do not consider them as their own. Agarwal (1999) points out that when women purchase lands they acquire a greater sense of economic security and of confidence in themselves and, therefore, they improve their ability to negotiate.
The third group of women is the one that does not make decisions. These are part of domestic units where the boats are worked by a male family member, whether the husband or sons, because the fishing activity is directed towards subsistence. They are older compared to those that do make decisions, in addition to having less time with the permit in their name, which shows that the gender roles in society are not static and are affected by social and economic changes at the individual, family and community level (Williams, 2010).
Finally, the literature points out that the property rights (access, exploitation, management, exclusion and alignment) are cumulative and are nested; for example, the rights of management cannot be exercised without those of access (Charles, 2005; Poteete et al., 2012). The number of women fishing permit holders is restricted; this is observed in those who occupy principal positions in one of the local organizations of permit holders, since by having the right of access they have been allowed to be in contact with other spheres of power and information and opens the path to spaces linked to decision making that can impact the community management of the resources (Savard and Fraga, 2005; Meinzen-Dick et al., 1997; Kleiber 2014). This also explains that women who have more time being permit holders are the ones who have a greater capacity in decision making, since their access to the public sphere and to spaces of power is extended with the passing of years.
Conclusions
In this article, the transference of fishing permits from men to women in Isla Arena was documented, as well as the modifications in their ability to make decisions. It is concluded that the differences there are allow understanding variations by them in this sense, with the most important elements to consider being the following: the purpose of fishing (whether for commercial purposes or for subsistence), the family composition, and the type of fishing activities they perform.
Finally, the invitation is to continue documenting these processes and breaking the stereotype of resource management centered in the dominion of the sea – boats, fish, fishermen – (Britton, 2012), to design policies that lead to the equality in the use of rights of access (FAO, 2012) and which, together with more efficient measures for fishing planning, can lead to the sustainable development with a gender perspective.
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3At the state level, the Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture (Secretaría de Pesca y Acuacultura, SEPESCA) has the principal task of planning, coordinating, executing, and evaluating the fishing policy.
4The General Law for Sustainable Fishing and Aquaculture (Ley General de Pesca y Acuacultura Sustentables) states that the permits can be granted for commercial aquaculture, aquaculture for promotion, aquaculture for teaching, commercial fishing, fishing for promotion, fishing for teaching and sport-recreational fishing (DOF, 2012). This study is focused on the commercial fishing permits.
5Since September 2015, the corresponding administrative process was started before the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Protection of Personal Data (Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información, y Protección de Datos Personales), to petition CONAPESCA for official information on the number of women permit holders in Isla Arena. The information has still not been supplied at the moment of sending this text to publication (winter 2016).
Received: May 2016; Accepted: January 2017