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FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY: THE STATE AND SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES MODERNIZATION IN SOUTHERN PUERTO RICO

Ricardo Perez, Ph.D University of Connecticut, 2000

The study o f fisheries development is never included in analyses o f Puerto Rico's culture and economy and hence merits the attention of anthropologists and other social scientists. By bringing fisheries development to the fore, this dissertation aims to analyze the role of the Puerto Rican government in the transformation o f the island's fisheries from traditional to modem economic enterprises. Although the United States government was concerned with the underdeveloped nature of Puerto Rico's fisheries since it took possession o f the island in 1898. only in the early 1940s the Puerto Rican government assumed fisheries development as its own responsibility. An analysis o f direct state intervention shows that fisheries development in Puerto Rico has been characterized by discontinuous implementation o f several government programs and policies that have discouraged capital accumulation at the local level. But whereas the Puerto Rican government has successfully modernized the island's fisheries, most commercial fishermen still engage in petty forms o f production that help them reproduce their household economy.


Ricardo P^rez—University of Connecticut, 2000

Given the rapid socio-economic development o f Puerto Rico since the early 1950s, it was expected that petty commodity production in the fishing industry would have developed into petty capitalism. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in three fishing communities o f southern Puerto Rico in order to test the hypothesis that state intervention has hampered fisheries development. It consisted o f the application o f a household survey, structured interviews with fifty commercial fishermen regarding the processes o f economic development in the region studied, and structured interviews with twelve fishery agents about changes in fisheries development policies since the 1940s. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis showed that the majority o f the fishermen’s households experience precarious economic conditions and combine various semi-skilled and skilled jobs with transfer payments from the United States and Puerto Rican governments. No major differences between the fishermen’s households were found. As a result, most fishermen as well as fishery agents agreed that the potential for fisheries development in Puerto Rico is severely limited. Thus, state intervention should be revisited in order to promote fisheries conservation and co-management.



Ricardo Perez

B.A., University of Puerto Rico, 1989 M.A., New Mexico State University, 1993

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2000


UMI N um ber 9984082

Copyright 2000 by Perez, Ricardo All rights reserved.

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Copyright by

Ricardo Perez

2000


Approval Page

Doctor o f Philosophy Dissertation


Presented by

Ricardo Perez, B.A., M.A.

Major Advisor H. Scott Cook

Associate Advisor

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C

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Z

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A. Leigh Leigh Binfora

Associate Advisor Samuel Martinez

Associate Advisor aides Pizzini

University o f Connecticut 2000


Preface

No one who is conducting ethnographic fieldwork or writing dissertation manuscripts these days can deny the fact that it is extremely problematic to represent ethnographically local cultures without taking into consideration major theoretical and conceptual issues from various academic fields. As many scholars now acknowledge, these are days o f cross-examination between disciplines but also o f conspicuous skepticism about the strength, coherence and vitality o f social science discourses including, obviously, anthropology’s. These are also critical times, as it has become fashionable to disguise any seemingly unresolved, contradictory or politically contentious aspect o f society under the cloak o f a “crisis.” In this way, for instance, James McGoodwin (1990) and George Marcus and Michael Fischer (1986) can conveniently talk about the “crisis in the world’s fisheries” and the “crisis o f anthropological representations,” respectively. More seriously, for it is now widely accepted by disaffected scholars and political activists as well, the complexity o f global socio-political conditions has created new forms o f discourse that are commonly grouped around the prefix post, as in post-modernism, post-Marxism and post-development, to name a few. In many ways, the analysis I present in the following chapters was motivated by the desire to analyze how new forms and conditions o f possibility in social science discourses illuminate the study o f fisheries development in Puerto Rico. I singled out post-development because it embodies a critical evaluation o f the development paradigm as modernization theorists and apologists appropriated it during the 1950s and 1960s in order to describe the political, cultural and economic transformation o f the world since

iii


World War H. But whereas post-development critics have called attention to the politics o f development economics and modernization, I am also aware o f its limitations stemming from lack o f theoretical coherence. As an incipient critical discourse, post development is still struggling to solidify its main tenets, analytical assumptions, and possibilities. I am aware o f this reality and argue that, in order to sustain its appeal as a theoretical discourse, post-development must transcend its fascination with provoking controversies and debates. In this dissertation, post-development will be considered to be a helpful discourse that provides the rigor needed in order to analyze state intervention in Puerto Rico’s fishing industry. This dissertation is based on historical and ethnographic data collected during a fourteen months research period that extended from October 1996 to December 1997. Prior to conducting ethnographic fieldwork in three fishing communities of southern Puerto Rico, I conducted a search for historical documents that allowed m e to place the study o f fisheries development in a proper historical context. However, the historical data found at the General Historical Archives were scanty, a problem relating more to getting access to pertinent collections than to the availability o f adequate documentation, or lack o f interest in fisheries development on the part o f fisheries scientists and government officials. Since the bulk o f historical documents for the decades after 1940s are neither catalogued nor classified, access to them was restricted. I was able to construct the historical background using published sources on fisheries development in Puerto Rico since the early 1940s. It is necessary to point out at this moment that, whereas I take into consideration the varied forms in which “the archive encroaches on the field” (see Clifford 1990:54), this dissertation draws primarily from the ethnographic data collected

iv


in 1997 from field observations and structured interviews with commercial fishermen and fishery agents. Although the ethnographic data gathered in 1997 comprise the bulk o f information, I have visited the fishing communities for short periods o f time in December 1998, the summer o f 1999, and December 1999. During each visit the fishermen talked to me about several construction projects currently going on in the region. Whenever possible, I have incorporated them in some chapters o f the dissertation. Some projects, like a submarine pipeline to discharge used waters off the Ponce coast and Eco-Electrica (a power-generating plant) in the north side o f Guayanilla Bay, are completed but it is still too early to assess their impacts on fishermen’s lives and marine resources in southern Puerto Rico. Others, like an oil transshipment facility that will be located next to the fishing communities studied, are still being considered as I write this preface. Local fishermen, fishery agents and environmentalists are certain that all o f them will have an impact upon the quality o f life and the conservation o f coastal and marine resources. These constructions also make evident the importance o f coastal zones and resources for the promotion o f economic development plans. Hopefully, their outcomes will not be as harmful as they have been in the past and will contribute to the economic well being o f the fishing communities and municipalities most directly affected. Every visit to the fishing communities has also helped me understand better the social and economic realities confronted by the local commercial fishermen. Not only has the information collected from unstructured interviews and conversations updated the data gathered in the original fieldwork but, more importantly, it has helped me understand the endurance o f the fishermen’s lifestyles, cultural and social values, and

V


work histories. One aspect o f the original fieldwork that I addressed during the visits in 1998 and 1999 related to the gaps in the fishermen’s personal and historical memories o f their communities and the transformation of the local fisheries. But as also happened in 1997, it was difficult for me to reconstruct entire processes o f fisheries development and modernization because the fishermen were unable to recall several important events for producing a thorough analysis. It did not matter how many times (and in what forms) I posed the questions, their recollections were revealed to me in a broken sequence o f events, as fragments o f memory that had to be pasted and properly arranged in order to make sense of the discontinuities o f fisheries modernization in southern Puerto Rico. The title o f the dissertation, fragments o f memory, thus refers to and acknowledges the valuable contributions of the fishermen’s voices and experiences to my representation o f small-scale fishing. Throughout the text, I have maintained the names o f the fishing communities —Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion—as they are. In doing so, I have reversed the conventional anthropological practice of concealing the names of the field research settings with pseudonyms. Similarly, I have avoided the use o f pseudonyms to name the small-scale commercial fishermen; instead, I have only used their first name for I consider that this practice still protects the fishermen’s identity and restores strength to their voices and aspirations. Using the fishermen’s first name also provides a sense o f connection with the residents in the communities where I conducted fieldwork. I only hope that the ways in which I represent them can make justice to their memories, livelihoods, and struggles.

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Acknowledgements

This dissertation has benefited from the advice and commentaries o f numerous persons who have read it and shared ideas and suggestions. For his diligence reading the dissertation manuscript and suggesting ideas to improve the final version, I am grateful to my advisor, Professor Scott Cook. He also contributed with most theoretical insights on and critiques to the literature on small-scale commodity production and maritime anthropology that I discuss here. Professor Leigh Binford also read the manuscript and made thoughtful theoretical commentaries in more than one occasion, even though he was not always present to share the critical and long process o f dissertation writing. I am also grateful for his helpful editorial comments. Professor Manuel Valdes Pizzini deserves special gratitude and admiration for all the support, encouragement, and advice he has offered throughout the time I have devoted to this project. He has guided me through every step o f the research and writing processes and his sound recommendations and remarkable knowledge o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries and anthropology have greatly enriched this dissertation. Professor Samuel Martinez also read the manuscript and made important recommendations, especially to the first three chapters. I am greatly indebted to these excellent professors for all their help and support. I conducted fieldwork in southern Puerto Rico thanks to the financial support of the Anthropology Department and the Research Foundation o f the University of Connecticut, in Storrs. It was also made possible by a grant from the University o f Puerto Rico Sea Grant College Program. I am greatly indebted to its Director, Professor Manuel Valdes Pizzini, and the staff that has generously helped make this project a reality,

vii


especially Javier Velez Arocho, Migdalia Figueroa, Laurie Acosta, and Ruperto Chaparro. I also want to express my sincere appreciation to Daniel Matos Caraballo, in charge o f Puerto Rico's Fisheries Research Laboratory’s statistical program, for providing me the data on commercial fish landings and number o f commercial fishermen reported in the island during the past two decades. Also in Puerto Rico, the following fisheries agents contributed their knowledge and expertise o f the fisheries and helped me complete various parts o f the field research: Aida Rosario, Luis Rivera, Miguel Rolon, Graciela Garcia-Moliner and Jaime Gonzalez Azar. It would have been impossible to complete this dissertation without the help, support, and friendship o f all the fishermen and residents I met in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro, and Encamacion. Perhaps without their consent, they have allowed me to expose the history o f their communities and the beauty o f the region where they live to a great number o f readers who otherwise would have not become aware o f their agonies and triumphs. With all my respect and sincere admiration, I wish to acknowledge the support and warm friendship offered by all fishermen and residents that in one way or another collaborated in this project. Although the list o f friends is too extensive to mention them all, I want to acknowledge especially the following families and individuals: the Maldonado Jusino family, the Irizarry family, the Rodriguez family, the Molano family, Luis Aponte, Ruben Morales Quinones and Guty Medina. To the fishermen and residents I did not mention here (they all know how important their contribution was) I also want to express sincere gratitude and appreciation. My family and friends also deserve my special gratitude for their unconditional support and encouragement. In spite of their detachment from academic circles and

viii


scholarly discussions and debates, my relatives have always believed in me and waited for so long to see this moment becoming a reality. Among my friends, Augusto F. Gandia has a special place in my heart. Not only did he make the maps that adom this dissertation but for more than a decade he has been a brother and a source o f inspiration and perseverance: a loyal friend with whom I have shared victories and misfortunes. Juan Negron, a long-time friend, has also encouraged and supported me through this process. Patrick McGlamery, Map Librarian at the University o f Connecticut’s Map and Geographic Information Center, gave me access to maps and equipment and helped scan several maps included in the dissertation. Yi Fang, Assistant in the Anthropology Department’s Computer Laboratory, helped me organize some statistical data and draw the pie charts included in chapters 1, 5, and 6. I also want to acknowledge the support offered by several friends who have motivated me and shared their hopes and enthusiasm during the time I spent at the University o f Connecticut. They are Dr. Dania BrandfordCalvo, Dr. James Fans, Dr. Bernard Magubane, Hilda I. Llorens, Rosa Carrasquillo, Eric B. Williamson, (the late) Alberto Arroyo, Luis G. Villaronga, Claudia Santelices, Paulo Contreras, Jong-In Lee, Anne M. Strah, and Maria C. Robbins.

ix


Table of Contents

Approval p a g e ...........................................................................................................

ii

Preface........................................................................................................................

iii

Acknowledgements..................................................................................................

vii

List of T ables............................................................................................................

xiii

List of Figures...........................................................................................................

xiv

Epigraph.....................................................................................................................

xv

Chapter 1. The fate o f small-scale fisheries in Puerto Rico’s development: An introduction.................................................................................

1

“Aquellos tiempos si eran buenos” ...........................................................................

1

An overview o f the current conditions o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries.......................................................................................................................

8

The persistence o f petty production in Puerto Rico’s fisheries............................

13

The paradoxes and complexities o f fisheries development in Puerto Rico and other research fo ci....................................................................

18

Presentation and organization o f the chapters........................................................

25

Endnotes to Chapter 1 ..............................................................................................

29

Chapter 2. Tales from the seas: Anthropological renderings o f maritime lives and w o rk .....................................................................................

31

Conceptualizing maritime anthropology...............................................................

31

Economic anthropology and the study o f small-scale fishing enterprises: Critique o f a maritime m uddle...............................................

35

Reconceptualizing small-scale fishing in capitalist developm ent..............................................................................................

44

x


Government intervention and the quest for small-scale fisheries m odernization.............................................................................................................

47

Conclusions and recapitulation.................................................................................

59

Endnotes to Chapter 2 ................................................................................................

64

Chapter 3. Under the banner o f development: The discontinuous nature o f fisheries development policies in Puerto R ic o .......................................

65

Fisheries modernization in the era o f post-development studies..........................

65

The fisheries o f Puerto Rico at the crossroads o f imperial p o w er........................

72

Puerto Rico’s fisheries between the 1930s and 1945: reconstruction or developm ent?................................................................................

79

Post-war fisheries development and the consolidation of parallel institutionalism .............................................................................................

90

Conclusions and recapitulation.................................................................................

101

Endnotes to Chapter 3 ................................................................................................

105

Chapter 4. Narrating memory: Rural development and traditional fisheries modernization in southern Puerto R ic o ...................................................................................................................

107

Historical memories are made of personal rem em brances.....................................

107

Mapping the region: Nature, history and the dynamics o f economic developm ent...........................................................................................

113

Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion: Beyond the anthropological representations of the “traditional fishing community” ..............

129

The transformation o f traditional fishing practices in southern Puerto R ic o ...................................................................................................

144

Conclusions and recapitulation...................................................................................

153

Endnotes to Chapter 4 ..................................................................................................

157

Chapter 5. Precarious livelihoods: Household economy and the conditions o f small-scale fishing in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encam acion........................................................................

160

xi


The quest for small-scale commercial fisherm en....................................................

160

Dilemmas confronted to administer the household survey......................................

166

Household demographics, educational background and the occupational m ix ............................................................................................

172

The labor process o f fishing and its rewards I: The means of production, organization of the fishing crews and share system s...........................

182

The labor process o f fishing and its rewards II: Inshore fishing, fish marketing strategies, and consumption activities............................................

196

Fish production and economic success in southern Puerto R ico ...........................

203


208

Endnotes to Chapter 5 .................................................................................................

211

Chapter 6. Ethnographic representation o f fishermen’s engagements with industrialization: Semi-proletarianization and perceptions o f development...............................................................................

212

Where have the industries gone?...............................................................................

212

Industrial development and semi-proletarianization among rural fisherm en................................................................................................

217

Fishermen’s perceptions o f development.................................................................

229

Further perceptions o f small-scale fishing in southern Puerto R ic o ...................................................................................................

238


246

Endnotes to Chapter 6 .................................................................................................

251

Chapter 7. Conclusion: Going with the flow?: Ethnography, alternatives, and the politics o f post-development regimes o f representation.............................

252

Appendix 1 .....................................................................................................................

268

References c ite d ............................................................................................................

280

xii


List of Tables

Table 3.1 Major agencies and fisheries programs funded by the governments of Puerto Rico and United S tates...................................................

71

Table 4.1 List o f sugar mills in order o f rated capacity, with production for selected y ears...............................................................................

124

Table 4.2 List of industries located along the Guayanilla and Penuelas B ay s.........................................................................................................

128

Table 4.3 Population data for Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, selected y e a rs.....................................................................

143

Table 5.1 Major characteristics of small-scale fishing production in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion...................................

171

Table 5.2 Mean age, educational level and household size for fifty fishermen’s households surveyed in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion...........................................................................

173

Table 5.3 Age, education and family size distribution for fifty fishermen’s households surveyed in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion...........................................................................

175

Table 5.4 Mean length o f thirty-nine fishing vessels and horsepower capacity of forty-three motors owned by fifty fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encam acion.............................................................................................................

193

Table 5.5 Types and frequency distributions of fishing gear owned by fifty fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encam acion.....................................................................

195

Table 5.6 Fish marketing strategies reported by fifty fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion................................................................................................

200

Table 5.7 Elements of economic success among small-scale fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion................................................................................................

206

Table 6.1 Types of industrial jobs available for twelve fishermen in Guayanilla and Pefiuelas.........................................................................

224

xiii


List o f Figures

Figure 1.1 Coastal municipalities and fishing centers in Puerto R ic o ................................................................................................................

9

Figure 1.2 Number o f commercial fishermen reported in Puerto Rico, 1971-1998 ................................................................................................

10

Figure 1.3 Commercial fish and shellfish landings reported in Puerto Rico, 1971-1998 .................................................................................

13

Figure 1.4 Location map o f Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encam acion...................................................................................................

19

Figure 4.1 Map o f Guayanilla and its barrios............................................................

114

Figure 4.2 Map o f Penuelas and its barrios...............................................................

115

Figure 4.3 Aerial view o f the fishing community o f E ncam acion..........................

132

Figure 4.4 Aerial view o f the fishing community o f Playa de G uayanilla.............

135

Figure 4.5 Aerial view o f the fishing community o f El F a ro ...................................

141

Figure 5.1 Percentage o f full-time, part-time and non-commercial fishermen surveyed in 1997 ............................................................

177

Figure 5.2 Types o f jobs available for twenty-six part-time fishermen in Playa de G uayanilla...............................................................

178

Figure 5.3 Income sources for fifty fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encam acion.................................

181

Figure 5.4 Fishing locations exploited by commercial fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encam acion.............................

197

Figure 6.1 Percentage o f commercial fishermen who have migrated to the United States m ainland.........................................................

228

Figure 6.2 Fishermen’s perceptions o f development during fieldwork in 1997 ..................................................................................................

241

Figure 6.3 Fishermen’s perceptions o f development in the next ten y ears..........................................................................................................

243

xiv


Las pesqueras en el puerto de Guayanilla eran abundantisimas. En toda la gran extension que ocupan de tan dilatado seno, debieron encontrarse variadas y riquisimas closes de peces por los expedicionarios. En el primer tercio de este siglo (19) la pesca abundante era un arbitrio para los playeros. Don Miguel Saliva y don Manuel Yordan, duenos que fueron de las haciendas San Colombano y El Faro, encontraban provision de cam e para las dotaciones, y aceite para el alumbrado de los establecimientos, en la pesca de gatas, pez que formaba manchas inagotables. Todas las semanas salian lanchas para regresar cargadas de aquellos preciosos animales. Ademas de estos productos del mar, en el puerto encontraban los indios la almeja, que llamaban los naturales "pata de cabra, ’’ de que hacian aquellos gran consumo, y en sus mangles se cria el ostion de que hacen merecidos elogios los gastronomos. En la curva que formaba el puerto en la desembocadura del Rio Yauco, era tal la abundancia de peces hard 60 afios, que en muy pocas horas se conseguian lances de mucho valor.

Padre Jose Maria Nazario, 1893:130-131

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CHAPTER 1

The fate of small-scale fisheries in Puerto Rico’s development: An introduction

Puerto Rico today is a working museum o f past economies. Richard Weisskoff, 1985:53

“Aquellos tiempos si eran buenos”.... As if he were speaking to an audience of apprentices, Don Luis, a fisherman whose skin is tanned and hardened by the sun, vividly described to me the days when his father used to sell fresh fish in the town square of Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest city. His father, who never “soaked his feet in the ocean,” woke up early every morning to get to the house o f the fish dealer who bought the catch from most local fishermen and did not return to the community until the early evening hours. “My father sold fish his entire life, I’m telling you, he walked through Ponce carrying on his shoulders a pole with fresh fish.” Don Luis’ father was a colono, or an independent sugarcane grower, who maintained a contract with the owner o f Central Rufina, an important sugar mill located near the fishing community where they lived. He continued to sell fish until the late 1940s,

I


2

when the Puerto Rican government embarked on a long and uphill struggle to modernize the island’s fisheries. Don Luis also added, “sometimes [my father] left at six in the morning and came back at eight or at nine in the evening; he gave the fish for nothing, he gave it for ten cents, for fifteen, for tw enty....” Like Don Luis’ father, many fishermen and fish vendors across Puerto Rico walked long distances to sell fresh fish before it could get spoiled from the “sun hitting it all day long.” The most fortunate ones carried the fish in wooden boxes that they put on horses or in wheeled carts that allowed them to travel longer distances and to reach a greater number o f consumers in a shorter period o f time. But it was still hard for them to prevent the fish from spoiling. When the Puerto Rican government began to implement the sanitary laws and policy regulations to improve fish handling and marketing in the late 1940s, Don Luis’ father “had to buy a wooden cart, cover the interiors with foam and put some ice in order to keep the fish fresh because otherwise [the government] would throw him in jail.” As we might expect, Don Luis’ father was not the only fish vendor who faced the need to improve fish handling and marketing; like him, many others were compelled by the new government regulations to acquire wooden carts and maintain the fish on ice. As Don Luis suggested, the fish vendors who could not improve the conditions o f fish handling and marketing so as to comply with the new government regulations had to give up ambulatory fish peddling. Although the Puerto Rican government initially tackled the unhealthy and unattractive conditions of fish handling and marketing in many coastal areas, it soon developed a comprehensive development program to transform the traditional fisheries into commercial enterprises. Velez, Diaz Pacheco and Vazquez Calcerrada (1945)


3

identified the elements that characterized traditional fishing in Puerto Rico during the early 1940s based on the survey data that they collected in 1942 and 1943 from interviews with 281 fishermen, 6 middlemen and 80 fish vendors across the island. Although they did not provide data on the exact number o f fishermen who peddled the catches and those who sold it to a fish house or supermarket, it is clear that fishing was pursued primarily by older men with little knowledge o f how to preserve and market fresh fish. During the early 1940s, supermarkets were among the few places with refrigeration facilities but only 18% (out o f 63 supermarkets surveyed) reportedly purchased the catches from the local fishermen. The authors o f the report, themselves government officials

from one

o f the public institutions

responsible

for the

implementation of most fisheries development programs, concluded that fishing operations in Puerto Rico were conducted using unsophisticated fishing vessels; and that gear as well as fish handling and marketing were “extremely primitive” (see Velez, Diaz Pacheco and Vazquez Calcerrada 1945). Once fish imports dwindled as a result of the shortages created by World War II, the Puerto Rican government embarked on a sweeping program o f fisheries modernization in order to increase the supply of fresh fish in the local markets (see Suarez Caabro 1979:95, Valdes Pizzini 1985:10). The war hostilities imposed severe limitations on fish production and the small catches were insufficient to satisfy the high demand for fresh fish during those years. A similar situation occurred with many agricultural commodities produced on the island and thus the Puerto Rican population experienced acute levels o f food scarcity during the World W ar II period (see Ortiz Cuadra 1996). Beginning with the post-war period, government planners and agriculture


4 officials considered that fisheries comprised one o f the island’s main resources for the production o f foodstuffs, and the various laws created originally to rehabilitate agricultural production were extended to the fisheries sector. Therefore, the efforts to develop the fisheries were carried out by Puerto Rico’s Department o f Agriculture; under its auspices the fisheries became “one cornerstone in the island’s ambitious program for economic development.” 1 Subsequently, the Puerto Rican government created specific laws and regulations to modernize the island’s fisheries. Beginning in the 1950s, it considered that both agriculture and fishing were besieged by similar problems and treated both sectors o f production equally. Although the war hostilities helped to boost the implementation o f fisheries development programs, I argue that such programs responded to the government’s deliberate intention to transform the traditional fisheries into modem commercial enterprises. It involved facilitating the construction o f infrastructure in all fishing centers across Puerto Rico that consisted o f wharves to land the catches, a building with office and refrigeration facilities where the fishermen could store large quantities of fish and keep the vessels and fishing gear in a safe place. Fisheries development programs were anchored on two basic premises. Firstly, the government extended credit benefits to the fishermen through the approval o f low-interest loans that allowed them to purchase boats, motors and fishing gear, or to upgrade the equipment that they already owned. Secondly, the government encouraged the fishermen to organize cooperatives and associations in order to improve fish handling and secure the prompt marketing o f the catches. More significantly, the cooperatives and associations allowed them to organize around issues that the fishermen seemed to have in common and to


5

participate in the political field opened up by their subsequent incorporation into the process of capitalist development and modernization. As I shall explain more fully in Chapter 3, fisheries development policies went through a series o f stages as the Puerto Rican government created and funded new programs and dismantled others that were considered inappropriate or burdensome. In essence, most programs involved the creation o f short-term measures to improve particularly problematic aspects o f the fishing economy, such as fish handling and marketing, which were eliminated once they accomplished the expected goals. Other programs, however, never received financial support from the Puerto Rican Legislature and were thus incapable o f impacting or transforming the island’s fisheries. It is my contention that although fisheries development in Puerto Rico has been a discontinuous process, some government programs have successfully transformed the fisheries into modem economic enterprises. Especially through the implementation o f the Program for the Fishing Villages during the early 1960s, the Puerto Rican government accomplished this goal by improving the fishing infrastructure in most coastal communities, facilitating the acquisition o f modem fishing gear or upgrading existing technologies and, organizing fishermen associations that contributed (among other things) to market the catches more efficiently. In spite o f the apparent success o f fisheries modernization, commercial fishing in Puerto Rico remains a small-scale type of activity in which a large number of fishermen own the means of production and control most stages o f the fishing process. In the discourse o f economic anthropology, this organization o f production is referred to as petty commodity production or simple commodity production, a core concept that I will discuss


6

further in the next chapter. Suffice it to say that petty production encompasses petty commodity production and petty capitalism and that the latter has the potential to develop from the former. In the classic Western European transition from petty commodity production to petty capitalism merchant capital was directly involved. Even today, ethnographic evidence from rural areas in so-called developing countries like Mexico has shown that petty capitalism can develop from petty commodity production. For example, Cook and Binford’s (1990) study o f peasant-artisan household production in the Oaxaca Valley of southern Mexico revealed that intensification o f commodity production for market exchange could induce some peasant-artisan households to hire non-household labor. While peasant-artisan households maintained agricultural production for own use, they also engaged in the production o f non-agricultural commodities that allowed them to generate an income with which to purchase the goods they could not produce. In the Oaxaca Valley, petty commodity production in certain industries, such as garment manufacturing, has the greatest possibilities to develop into petty capitalism (see Cook and B inford 1990:127-130). Cook and Binford (1990) did not try to answer whether or not petty commodity production can lead to petty capitalism (for them there is no reason to argue the contrary) but to understand under what conditions can that process take place. According to them, in circumstances where household production expands by relying solely on non-waged household labor, a process o f endofamilial accumulation emerges. It is defined by “capital accumulation based upon the unpaid labor of household members and thus conditioned by the size and demographic make up o f the household as well as by its access to economic resources” (Cook and Binford 1990:23). In their study o f the Oaxaca Valley, Cook and


7

Binford (1990:149) also found out that “capitalist development is not occurring uniformly in the rural petty industrial sector and that in several industries is not occurring at all.” While in the past brick making was among the rural industries with better chances to cross the threshold from petty commodity production to petty capitalism, “there appears to be little opportunities for today’s brickyard proletariat to achieve the status o f independent producers through endofamilial accumulation” (see Cook and Binford 1990:143). Today the garment and weaving industries are the ones that hold the potential to successfully realize this transition. During the mid-1980s, increased interest in the study o f petty forms o f production in so-called Third World countries raised the awareness o f the unequal manners in which petty producers interacted with (and were thus partially subsumed by) wider capitalist relations o f production. In contrast to conventional views and optimistic predictions about economic development, it was evident that, as capitalism continued to spread to almost every region o f the world, petty forms o f production did not disappear; instead it displayed interesting and unexpected articulations with global capitalism. Much to the surprise of committed scholars and political activists, petty forms o f production were reproduced with amazing regularity in many so-called Third World countries (see Cook and Binford 1990:1-4). Among the most conspicuous aspects o f the studies conducted during the 1970s and early 1980s were the emphasis that anthropologists placed on the internal dynamics o f petty production and the likelihood that it could lead to petty capitalism. Earlier efforts to construct an appropriate definition o f petty commodity production as a distinct mode of production —which dominated most theoretical debates among economic anthropologists


8

during the 1970s— were abandoned when concern shifted to study the forms through which petty commodity production became subsumed by capitalism. For a long period o f time many anthropologists and committed scholars considered that the industrialized countries o f Europe and North America had imposed capitalism to Latin America from outside. But it turned out that their misguided belief about capitalism’s failure to develop from the internal dynamics o f petty commodity production could not be supported in light o f the evidence o f capitalist expansion in socalled Third World countries.

An overview of the current conditions of Puerto Rico’s fisheries The relatively small scale o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries is indicated by the following description of some major aspects o f fish production, marketing and consumption. Some 1,758 fishermen in 42 coastal municipalities, including Vieques and Culebra, cany out fishing in Puerto Rico (see Figure 1.1). The number o f active commercial fishermen has remained steady over the past two decades and mirrors the number reported by Norman Jarvis in 1932, when he estimated that there were approximately 1,403 fishermen scattered throughout the island (see Figure 1.2). The most recent fisheries census indicates that 1,262 (72%) fishermen fish on a full-time basis2 and 1,082 (62%) belong to a fishermen’s association (Matos Caraballo 1997a:3). The same census report shows that, of the 1,501 fishing vessels reported, approximately 25% measure 15 feet long or less, 61% measure between 16 and 21 feet, 13% measure between 22 and 29 feet and only 1% are longer than


9

30 feet. The average propulsion capacity o f the motors, on the other hand, is just 43 horsepower (Matos Caraballo 1997a:4).

Figure 1.1 Coastal municipalities and fishing centers in Puerto Rico

Atlantic Ocean

Caribbean Sea


10

Figure 1.2 Number of commercial fishermen reported in Puerto Rico, 1971-1998 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200

1000 800 600 400

200 0

m 1=3

n n l.--

& $ r; H irj r'j rA frj f-J H Fj Fj iri j L l l’ 1 ( -/ •-'■’I Kj f/4 fJ r

11 § ^

td

Ld

ci

U

£d cl

[

qS>

OsN

Most fishing gear are manually operated and include a variety o f nets, lines and fish pots that the fishermen generally manufacture from materials purchased in agricultural and sport shops. The Puerto Rican fishermen combine these gears in order to catch a diversity o f fish species that abound in the tropical waters o f the Caribbean Sea. It is estimated that approximately 31% of the fishermen fish on the shore, 70% fish on the continental shelf, 43% on the shelf edge and 46% on oceanic waters (Matos Caraballo 1997a:4). These numbers point to the fact that poor technological innovations limit most fishing operations to the inshore areas like mangroves, coral reefs and small islets and cays.3 Since the late 1980s, fish production in Puerto Rico has fluctuated between two and three million pounds a year, a drastic reduction from 1979 when the highest amount


11

o f landings ever (7.2 million) was reported (see Figure 1.3).4 In 1996, the year for which the most recent statistical data are available, 3,617,039 pounds o f fish and shellfish were reported. Ironically (because one of the first goals o f the fisheries development programs was to improve fish handling and marketing), the census also reports that 41% o f the fishermen market the catches in an ambulatory fashion while 40% sell them to a fishermen’s association (Matos Caraballo 1997a:4). As these figures clearly indicate, a significant percentage o f the total number o f fishermen continues to market the catches on their own. For the past few decades, the western coast o f Puerto Rico, extending from Lajas to Aguadilla, has been the most productive fishing region in terms o f reported fish landings, yielding 40% o f the total catches. On the other hand, the southern coast, extending from Patillas to Guanica, yields 30% o f the total catches. They are followed by the eastern coast, from Fajardo to Maunabo and including Vieques and Culebra islands, with 17% o f the total catches and the northern coast, from Isabela to Luquillo, with 13% (Matos Caraballo l997b:8-9). The differences in terms o f fish landings per coast respond to a series o f factors, including variations in the extension of the insular shelf and the number o f active commercial fishermen per coast. For example, on the north coast the fishing conditions are least favorable due to a lack o f protection from the high seas that predominate from November through March. Similar factors are found on the northwest coast but the southwest region has an ample shelf that reaches approximately 27 kilometers (see Weiler and Suarez Caabro 1980:7). The south coast is similar to the southwest in having coral reefs, mangroves and sheltered bays. The total shelf area o f approximately 123,669 hectares is similar to that o f the west coast, which measures

Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

12

approximately 124,347 hectares. Finally, the 269,304 hectares makes the eastern insular shelf the most extensive coast (Weiler and Suarez Caabro 1980:7). Cabo Rojo, a municipality in the southwest coast, has consistently reported the highest amount o f fish landings and the greater number o f fishermen. It is important to note that in this municipality the fishermen operate larger vessels that rely on sophisticated fishing technologies (see Valdes Pizzini 1992:28-33). There is little fluctuation in the total amount o f landings reported for the last three years for which the Fisheries Research Laboratory has collected data: 2,714,402 pounds in 1994, 3,708,999 pounds in 1995 and 3,617,039 pounds in 1996 (Matos Caraballo 1997a:4). In spite (or because) o f this little fluctuation, fishery agents consider that the Puerto Rican fisheries are overharvested. According to some fishery agents, one o f the major indicators o f overfishing in Puerto Rico is the fact that fishermen now must expend more time and energy and combine different fishing gear more frequently than in the past in order to catch smaller amounts o f fish and shellfish. In addition, biostatistical data have shown that some harvested species are below the minimum size o f sexual maturation while the landing data show that some species that were not previously marketed commercially now sell easily in many regional markets (see Matos Caraballo I997a:78 and 1997b: 13).5 To other fishery agents, on the other hand, overfishing has resulted from the successful introduction o f modem fishing technologies into the Puerto Rican fisheries. For them, the utilization o f outboard motors in fishing vessels previously moved by oars and o f fishing gear constructed with more durable materials has increased the efficiency o f fishing excursions.6


13

Figure 1.3 Commercial fish and shellfish landings reported in Puerto Rico, 1971-1998 8000000 7000000 6000000 5000000 4000000 3000000

2000000 1000000 0

The persistence of petty production in Puerto Rico’s fisheries It is not a contradiction that, while fisheries development programs have been successful, most commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico remain petty producers, that is to say worker-owners with few or no employees. The persistence of petty commodity production in the fishing industry is, in fact, the analytical and conceptual problem that motivated the research I will discuss in the following chapters. The goal will be to evaluate the hypothesis that direct intervention o f the Puerto Rican government since the 1940s has retarded the development of the island’s fisheries. I will argue that the persistence o f small-scale commodity production in Puerto Rico’s fisheries is a result o f the fishermen’s partial incorporation into the capitalist sphere o f production, leading only


14 to limited opportunities to accumulate capital at the local level. My contention thus challenges traditional explanations of failed fisheries development programs in the Caribbean region that emphasize either the ecological and environmental limitations o f tropical fisheries (Berleant-Schiller 1982) or the belief that the Puerto Rican fishermen lack a seafaring tradition (Suarez Caabro 1979:79). Although Valdes Pizzini (1985:26, 1992:11-12) has elsewhere criticized both views, I will go further to argue that these two explanations are misguided because they have failed to engage in a critical examination o f the role played by the Puerto Rican and United States governments in the modernization o f so-called traditional fisheries. The relationship between state intervention and petty production has been regarded as an important element o f a rethinking o f small-scale commodity production (see, for instance, MacEwen Scott 1986, Smith 1986). Anthropologists working with rural peasant populations have noted that “the state preserves or dissolves petty commodity production by the way in which it controls and regulates the various markets in the economy, which it rarely allows to be ‘self-regulating’” (Smith 1986:40). Although the structure o f local fish markets and the nature o f fish supply and demand will be taken into consideration, the main objectives o f the dissertation are 1) to explain the persistence o f petty production in the Puerto Rican fisheries; 2) to examine the role o f the Puerto Rican government in the promotion o f fisheries development and modernization; and 3) to determine the impacts o f various fisheries development programs on fishermen’s perceptions o f development and the conditions o f small-scale fishing in southern Puerto Rico. I will investigate the reasons that may explain why the petty commodity form o f production has persisted under conditions where petty capitalism could have developed


15

more widely. The non-emergence o f petty capitalist forms o f production, as Cook and Binford (1990:127-130) have defined it, is somewhat surprising given the wider processes o f capitalist development in Puerto Rico since the early 1950s. The nature o f petty production in Puerto Rico is not well understood. The few works published on the subject deal primarily with the seemingly marginal location o f petty producers as participants in the so-called informal economy. Those studies emphasize mostly the uneven relationships between capitalism and petty production and have created distorted representations of petty producers as marginal subjects who do not take advantage o f available economic opportunities in the island. Due to the fact that the presence o f Dominican migrants prevail in informal economic occupations, the study o f petty commodity production in Puerto Rico is directly connected to the informal economy, the marginality o f migrant groups and their limitations to participate in capitalist relations o f production (see, for instance, Duany, Hernandez Angueira and Rey 1995). This emphasis has neglected the study o f the major aspects o f petty commodity production in Puerto Rico and overlooked the forms that it takes in predominantly rural occupations as, for instance, the fishing industry. Puerto Rico’s fishing industry, characterized by low fish productivity, insufficient supply to meet the local demands, and production units largely dependent on kinship and affinal ties, represents a good example of small-scale commodity production. A large majority o f small-scale commercial fishermen are rural laborers who hold several jobs and possess limited educational backgrounds and skills, factors that limit their opportunities to find employment in the formal sectors of economy. As participants in petty commodity and petty capitalist production forms, fishermen constantly move back and forth from


16

formal to informal occupations. But whereas domestic production is still an important element o f the simple reproduction o f their household economy, it is nowadays insufficient to describe Puerto Rico’s fishing industry because most fishermen depend on wage labor to

satisfy their economic needs (see Griffith and Valdes Pizzini

[forthcoming]). For the most part, Puerto Rico’s commercial fishermen remain petty commodity producers and only in some areas in the southwest coast increased fish productivity have enabled them to employ non-household labor (see Valdes Pizzini 1985). In the next chapter, I will provide a more detailed explanation o f the development o f capitalist relations o f production in Puerto Rico’s fisheries. For now, it is imperative to stress the fact that the persistence of petty commodity production forms in the fishing industry distinguishes the predominant aspects o f rural commodity production from capitalist development. The persistence o f petty production in Puerto Rico’s fisheries also attests to the shortcomings o f governmental fisheries development programs. The period o f increased government intervention in the fisheries coincided with the rapid industrial development of Puerto Rico’s economy. I will argue that fisheries development must be studied in light of the rapid modernization of the island’s culture and economy that resulted from Operation Bootstrap. Under the leadership o f Luis Mufioz Marin and the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), since the late 1940s Operation Bootstrap ushered in a new role for the Puerto Rican government characterized by the promotion of foreign capital investment and the provision o f tax exemption to industrial plants expressing interest in Puerto Rico (see Baver 1993, Dietz 1986:252-255, Maldonado 1997, Pantojas Garcia 1990:88-142, W eisskoff 1985). The program o f industrial development thus took away the


17

efforts o f the government’s agents and experts from the promotion o f agricultural and fisheries development. It is almost a cliche to assume that industrial development in Puerto Rico since the late 1940s has radically transformed the agrarian and underdeveloped appearance o f the economy. The achievements o f the economic development model known as Operation Bootstrap, however, were not the spontaneous result o f rapid socio-cultural change. Instead, economic development in Puerto Rico has been the result o f a deliberate program o f socio-economic modernization characterized by external capital investment and accumulation within the context of direct colonial domination. It has been argued elsewhere that the ideological underpinnings behind the creation and implementation o f Operation Bootstrap distinguish Puerto Rico’s economic development from similar processes o f development put in place in other regions o f the world (see Pantojas Garcia 1990:4). Operation Bootstrap signaled the beginning o f a new era o f capitalist development and accumulation that relied on the decisive role o f the Puerto Rican government in furnishing the mechanisms to make foreign (mostly United States) capital investment more attractive and convenient. By setting up the juridical and political framework that provided tax exemptions to light manufacturing and assembly-type industries wanting to establish operations in the island, the relative autonomy that the Puerto Rican government had to promote its own process o f economic development was further constrained as Puerto Rico became heavily dependent on United States firms and federal legislation (like Section 936 o f the Internal Revenue Service Code) promoting industrial operations in the island.


18

The paradoxes and complexities of fisheries development in Puerto Rico and other research foci Both the working hypothesis and research objectives will be tested using historical and ethnographic data collected during a fourteen month study conducted in southern Puerto Rico from October 1996 to December 1997. A brief period o f archival research was conducted at Puerto Rico’s National Historical Archives, various units o f the University of Puerto Rico Library System and in the public libraries o f Guayanilla and Penuelas, the two municipalities where I conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the small-scale commercial fishermen. The ethnographic fieldwork provided the bulk o f the research data and was carried out in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, three small fishing communities that have been differently impacted by various fisheries development programs in southern Puerto Rico since the late 1950s (see Figure 1.4). It consisted of the application of a household survey in each community, preparing notes from field observations, conducting structured interviews with the commercial fishermen as well as semi-structured interviews with local middlemen. Finally, I conducted a series o f structured interviews with several fishery agents working in various government agencies across the island in order to investigate the changing nature o f fisheries policies and regulations since the late 1940s. The utilization o f historical and ethnographic data from various sources and loci is one o f the contributions o f this multi-sited ethnography (see Marcus 1998).


19

Figure 1.4 Location map o f Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacion

Penuelas Yauco

Guayanilla

Guanica Punta Guayanilla

Punta / Verraco

Caribbean Sea

o

12 Kilometers


Ponce

20

Like most fishing communities in Puerto Rico, Playa de Guayanilla and Encarnacion have been transformed after the introduction o f various government fisheries development programs while El Faro has never been directly exposed to such programs. In Chapter 4, I present a detailed description o f the three communities and analyze the transformation o f the traditional fisheries in the region. The three communities have also been negatively impacted by industrial development in the coastal areas close to where the fishermen live and work. As a result of industrial pollution, as well as the fallout o f fisheries development programs, in each community the fishermen have attained different degrees of economic success. The analysis o f different degrees o f economic success will stress the combination o f several historical circumstances o f rural production related mainly to agriculture and fishing that comprise an important element with which to assess the fishermen’s perceptions o f development. I will argue that in fishing communities where fisheries development programs have been relatively successful the fishermen will perceive the outcomes of fisheries development more positively than in communities where fisheries development has had negative impacts (or where programs have never been implemented, as in El Faro). Although the relationship between economic success and the perceptions o f development may seem straightforward, it will be seen that seemingly unrelated features o f fisheries modernization such as industrialization can greatly affect fishermen’s perceptions. As the discussion o f economic success will reveal, there exist multiple and contested perceptions and opinions o f fisheries development among the fishermen o f the three communities studied. Depending on whether the fisheries development programs contributed to foster or hamper the reproduction o f household economies, the fishermen


21

rendered positive or negative perceptions (respectively) o f the governments’ intervention in local affairs. Besides paying due attention to both capital transfers and the introduction o f what Reginald Byron (1994:271) has called (in the context o f the North Atlantic fisheries) “the institutions o f modernity” in the Puerto Rican fisheries, my analysis will also take into account the institutionalization o f fisheries development programs. This process, which I will call “parallel institutionalism,” entailed the creation o f an administrative infrastructure that grounded the knowledge apparatus required to modernize the island’s fisheries. Accordingly, I will examine the creation o f government agencies such as the Fisheries Office o f the Department o f Agriculture, the Fisheries Research Laboratory, and the Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources in order to investigate the roles they have played in the promotion o f fisheries development policies. I will argue that their creation entailed the direct intervention o f the Puerto Rican government in knowing, naming, and regulating all fishing practices. I will borrow from recent critical assessments o f development discourses (a theoretical approach that will be called here post development studies for lack o f a better term [see Escobar 1991, 1995, Ferguson 1990, Rahnema and Brawtree 1997, Sachs 1992], to investigate the processes through which the Puerto Rican government has constructed the discourse o f fisheries modernization and economic development. Post-development studies are an emergent research area that critically examines modernization and development discourses as they were espoused during the 1950s and 1960s to stress the need o f so-called Third World countries to opt for economic progress at whatever cost. Many contributors to post-development studies suggest that current global


22

socio-economic and political conditions make the old development paradigm useless and unfeasible (see Rahnema and Brawtree 1997). The case o f fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico, however, requires that the application of post-development critiques be modified due to the fact that modernization o f the fishing industry has been directly influenced by policies and regulations devised by United States experts. This situation renders the Puerto Rican case rather different from case studies discussed by post development critics who focus mostly on the economic development programs fostered by the industrialized nations and multilateral lending institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Due to the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, the international community and the multilateral lending institutions have been unable to extend their programs for economic development to the island. As I shall discuss in Chapter 3, the fisheries development programs implemented in Puerto Rico since the early 1940s have depended heavily on close cooperation between the Puerto Rican and United States public institutions. A critical appropriation o f post-development studies will provide an account of the various levels o f government intervention in the affairs o f the Puerto Rican fishing communities. I hope to demonstrate that fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico has been a dynamic process whereby the municipal (or local) governments are embedded in larger Puerto Rican and United States economic development schemes. In other words, the three levels o f government intervention that will be analyzed here are federal, to refer to the United States; Commonwealth, to refer to Puerto Rico;7 and local to refer to the municipalities and fishing communities. The analysis presented in the following chapters will demonstrate that the Puerto Rican government has fostered the integration o f the


23

fishing communities into the national frameworks o f development created by bureaucrats and fishery experts from both Puerto Rico and the United States. Finally, it is important to point out that the region where the three fishing communities studied are located has been entwined in the global dynamics o f development ever since sugarcane production and exportation became the most important agricultural activities in Puerto Rico during the first half of the 19th century. Finally, it is also necessary to point out that the notions o f development and modernization, complex and broad as they seem to be, will be used here interchangeably in order to refer to related processes o f economic transformation and cultural change. Both modernization and modernity are concepts that have suddenly become part and parcel of most social science research, thus giving the impression that any contemporary study that does not engage in a discussion o f their implications may be incomplete or lopsided. Since both modernization (or development) and modernity have obvious and direct implications to the kind of analysis that I will present in the following chapters, they require a word o f explanation. Jose Joaquin Brunner (1992), a Chilean sociologist, has used the term modernization to refer to the processes o f economic development brought about by the rapid transformation o f the world capitalist system following the end o f the World War II period. His analysis, which draws heavily from Marshall Berman’s (1982) assessment of the cultural politics o f capitalism, supports the idea commonly expressed by many ideologues and critics o f capitalist development who argue that the modem transformation o f the global capitalist economy has led to a reconfiguration o f world politics and cultural production since the end o f World War II (see Amin 1994, Garcia Canclini 1995, Gaztambide Geigel 1996).


24 Likewise, Brunner (1992) has used the term modernity in order to refer to a series o f cultural transformations that have resulted from the implementation o f economic development programs by most national governments in their pursuit o f progress. It is well known that the resolution o f World War II led to the creation o f a number o f independent nation-states, primarily in Africa and Asia, that were liberated from the colonial yoke that had been imposed upon them by the European imperial powers (see Amin 1994, Rahnema and Brawtree 1997). For Brunner (1992), modernization or development and modernity are contingent processes with historical roots in the transformation of the capitalist world system since the mid-1940s. Furthermore, it is the drive towards economic modernization that has created the conditions o f possibility upon which the “experience o f modernity” has been constructed. The case o f economic development in Puerto Rico fits neatly with this conceptual model. With the implementation of Operation Bootstrap since the late 1940s, Puerto Rico’s culture and economy have been radically altered by the cultural and economic policies that the Popular Democratic Party introduced in order to foster the modernization o f the rural populations (see Davila 1997:33-91, Diaz Quinones 1993, Pantojas Garcia 1990). It is within this theoretical background that fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico will be examined for this local process o f economic and cultural transformation coincided with the global expansion of capitalism after World War II.


25

Presentation and organization o f the chapters The discussion of fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico outlined above will be developed in the following chapters. The remaining six chapters are divided as follows. Chapter 2 presents a short review o f the anthropological literature on maritime fisheries and highlight the discussion o f two broad research areas: the study o f small-scale fishing as a significant form o f petty production and the study o f the role that national governments played in the promotion o f fisheries modernization. This chapter also highlights the theoretical contributions that maritime anthropology has made to the development o f anthropological studies of the maritime fisheries, mainly to economic anthropology. However, it does not attempt to discuss the vast literature on maritime fisheries that have been published since maritime anthropology became a differentiated sub-field around the mid-1940s. Instead, it points to the major themes, approaches, and aspects o f the maritime anthropological studies that have dealt with the national governments’ interventions in the promotion of fisheries modernization. Chapter 3 presents an analysis o f the discontinuous processes o f fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico since the early 1940s. The discussion is framed through the critical appropriation o f post-development studies in order to analyze the discourses on fisheries development and modernization that the Puerto Rican and United States governments have constructed. In order to carry out such an analysis, I divide the federal and Puerto Rican governments’ intervention in the affairs o f the local fishing communities into three historical stages. The first period begins when the United States conducted its first exploration o f the waters surrounding Puerto Rico in 1898-1899 and lasts until the early 1930s, when the final survey was conducted. The second period


26 begins during the early 1930s and ends up around 1945.1 argue that since the early 1940s the Puerto Rican government has made important efforts to modernize the island’s fisheries. During this period the Puerto Rican and United States government worked closely together to help set up an administrative and knowledge infrastructure to create public agencies that could guide the construction and implementation o f fisheries development policies. The third period begins during the post-war years and runs through the present. It involved the consolidation o f the relationships between the Puerto Rican and United States governments in what I call a process o f “institutional parallelism.” Chapter 4 introduces the region where I conducted the field research and documents the historical and environmental dimensions o f the three fishing communities under study. I also present a brief historical discussion o f the municipalities where they are located in order to highlight the economic transformation o f the local rural economy. A description of the agricultural economy, primarily sugarcane production and exportation to international markets, is necessary in order to understand the linkages that commonly exist between agriculture and fishing. Most fishermen in the three communities studied have found seasonal employment in the cultivation and harvesting o f sugarcane and have been able to continue fishing as an important source o f household income. The last part o f the chapter analyzes the transformation o f the so-called traditional local fisheries as a result o f the implementation o f various fisheries development programs. As it did in other regions o f the island, the Puerto Rican government implemented fisheries development programs with the intention o f raising the productivity o f the local fisheries by upgrading the technologies and constructing the necessary infrastructure in every fish landing center.


27

In Chapter 5, I present an analysis o f the current conditions o f the fishing economy in the region under study and o f the fifty fishermen’s households that I surveyed in the three communities. From the analysis o f the quantitative data that I collected from a household survey and the information gathered from the structured interviews conducted with local fishermen I was able to document the historical and current conditions o f petty commodity production. The analysis o f the demographic and economic data disclosed the fact that the commercial fishermen’s households are subsisting in precarious conditions resulting from the fallout o f fisheries development programs implemented in the region, the reduction o f employment opportunities in non fishing areas as well as the degradation o f marine and coastal resources. I will argue that only those fishermen’s households capable o f pulling economic resources from various sources, ranging from self-employment to odd jobs and economic transfers from both the federal and economic governments, will improve their economic well being. Chapter 6 presents an analysis o f the fishermen’s perceptions o f economic development in southern Puerto Rico. An important aspect o f the discussion is the analysis o f the ways in which industrial development has influenced the fishermen’s perceptions and opinions o f fishing and the intervention of the federal, Puerto Rican and local governments in their communities. Industrial development in the region has not only transformed coastal landscapes but, more significantly, opened up possibilities for the semi-proletarianization and de-proletarianization of local commercial fishermen. The chapter also presents an account o f the assessment that the fishermen themselves rendered o f the current and future conditions o f fishing in the region. Although they provided multiple and somewhat contradictory opinions, the analysis shows that


28

fishermen tend to agree that the fishing economy will not raise the economic standards o f their households. Finally, Chapter 7 presents a summary o f the major arguments presented throughout the dissertation and problematizes the political uses o f post development critiques and regimes o f representation. In this sense, I engage in a discussion o f the significance that the rhetorical assumptions o f post-development studies bear on the construction o f ethnographic analyses o f small-scale rural economies, in this case small-scale fishing. I will suggest that post-development studies and regimes o f representation can contribute to the alternative production o f multi-sited ethnographies only when they supersede the constraining strategies o f modernist forms o f representation that overlook the political subjectivities of local people.


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Endnotes to Chapter 1

1. This quote appeared in the memorandum o f Puerto Rico’s House o f Representatives (Project 1291) dated October 30, 1954 that intended to justify the creation o f the Program for the Production and Distribution o f Foodstuffs, approved originally on January 24, 1951. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the government reports and interviews with commercial fishermen and fishery agents are by the author-ethnographer. 2. The distinction between full-time and part-time fishermen is not clear. The Fisheries Research Laboratory, the government agency that collects the fisheries statistical data, defines a full-time fisherman as someone who derives most o f his income from fishing alone whereas a part-time fisherman is defined as someone who earns one portion o f his income from fishing and another portion from various non-fishing sources (see Matos Caraballo and Torres Rosado 1989:11). This definition overlooks the fact that most fishermen’s household incomes combine the returns from multiple jobs with payment transfers from both the United States and Puerto Rican governments. Furthermore, it can be seen as a strategy to represent variations o f multiple labor patterns that does not depict accurately the objectives conditions observed in many coastal towns across Puerto Rico, and thus reduces demographic and economic differences between households to ambiguous definitions and categories. 3. The only example o f industrial fishing in Puerto Rico are the tuna canneries established in the south and west coasts since the 1950s. However, they only process the catches that foreign trawlers and seiners land in Puerto Rico. More significantly, market fluctuations and the relocation o f production to other regions of the world have recently hurt the tuna canneries. The decline o f the tuna canneries will have devastating effects for some areas of southwest Puerto Rico that depend heavily on them for employment and municipal revenues (see Trinidad 1997). 4.

The amount o f fish landings reported annually is an approximation because o f the difficulties o f collecting exact data from the fishermen. An exact figure depends on the consistent and accurate reporting of the daily catches by the fishermen, a situation that seldom occurs. Fishery agents, however, have recently noted that most fishermen are now reporting their daily catches with unusual promptness (see Matos Caraballo 1997b:13).

5. For further details that explain the apparent overharvested condition o f the Puerto Rican fisheries (and to have an idea of how this condition has filtered into the public opinion), see Bonilla 1997 and Perez 1997.


30

6. In an interview, the Acting Director of the Fisheries Research Laboratory boasted that the introduction o f modem fishing technologies since the early 1960s has been so successful that it has led to overharvesting certain fish stocks such as sharks. The interview was conducted on October 22, 1997. 7. I have refrained from using national government to refer to Puerto Rico because o f the political realities implied by the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. As is commonly acknowledged, a nation is a political entity with self-governing regulations and institutions that coalesce under the organization o f a state. As an unincorporated territory, Puerto Rico lacks the political autonomy to develop self-governing regulations and thus depends on the United States Congress for political, economic and juridical matters.


CHAPTER 2

Tales from the seas: Anthropological renderings o f maritime lives and work

In spite o f a vanishing fishing village syndrome that now engulfs even some o f the most remote coasts, traditional small-scale fishermen are by no means a vanishing breed.... Small boat economies have survived the industrial revolution, government policies designed to eliminate them in favor o f large-scale offshore fleets, the “blue” (aquaculture) revolution and the latest go-round o f water space and resource grabs under the Law o f the Sea. By all indications, the small boat will outlive the factory ship.

John Cordell, 1989:2

Conceptualizing maritime anthropology This dissertation is concerned with the transformation o f Puerto Rico’s so-called traditional fisheries since the late 1940s and aims to disclose the role that the federal and Commonwealth

governments

have played

in

such transformation.

Government

apologists, particularly those employed by some public agencies promoting fisheries development, have argued that the main force driving fisheries modernization has been

31


32

the continued and direct intervention o f Puerto Rico’s and United States’ governments in the affairs o f the local fishing communities. Within this perspective, fisheries modernization is a realm that falls under the umbrella o f government policies and regulations, especially because the private sector is uninterested in investing in unstable economic enterprise such as the fishing industry (see, for instance, Suarez Caabro 1979:95). With few exceptions, anthropological studies o f fishing in Puerto Rico have entirely overlooked the federal and Commonwealth governments’ role and impact on fishermen’s lives and the conditions o f coastal and marine resources (see, for example, Blay 1972, Lucca Irizarry 1981, Poggie 1978, 1979, Pollnac and Poggie 1978). These anthropologists have rarely based their analysis on the rapid transformation o f Puerto Rican society due to heavy industrialization since the late 1940s and its subsequent impact on state formation and colonial relationships with United States. Similarly, they have not framed their analyses within the context of anthropological approaches to fisheries modernization which, as noted elsewhere, is a “well-studied subject o f anthropological inquiry” (Cerf 1990:11). Before I present a detailed analysis o f state intervention in Puerto Rico’s fisheries (a task that I undertake in Chapter 3), I shall discuss the relevant anthropological literature on fishing —an amorphous sub-field sometimes called maritime anthropology. It is characterized by having focused on a wide range o f topics that document the enormous variety o f production relations and socio-cultural norms that exist in fishing communities all over the world. Although some major themes and approaches can be identified, maritime anthropology’s contribution to the development o f anthropological theories, especially those of economic anthropology, has been limited. In an early assessment o f


33

maritime anthropology, Andersen and Wadel (1972:8) summarized its primary concerns until the late 1960s and bemoaned that it showed a “theoretically unsystematized” development. Still in the late 1980s, Breton and Lopez Estrada (1989) argued that the growing body o f anthropological literature on fishing during the 1970s and early 1980s did not produce a theoretically sophisticated analysis.1 On the other hand, M. Estellie Smith has criticized the suggestion to consider maritime anthropology as a differentiated academic sub-field arguing that the only commonality between most anthropological studies o f fishing is water (cited in Acheson 1981:275). Like anthropological clubs, maritime anthropology brings together different groups o f scholars with varied interests in maritime cultures, adaptations and economic practices. There is ample agreement, however, that “there are some clear threads running through the anthropological literature on fishing” and that the emergence o f maritime anthropology in the 1940s responded to “the lack of theoretical focus in anthropology as a whole” (see Acheson 1981:275). Without delving too much into the controversy regarding maritime anthropology’s locus, predicament, and main contributions, in this chapter I shall highlight some elements that bear significance to the theoretical discussion o f small-scale fishing as a form o f petty production. I will argue that construction o f ambiguous definitions and representations o f small-scale commercial fishing derives mainly from inadequate theoretical approaches that consider fishing a unique and exceptional form o f production. Such inadequacy will be readily seen in the discussion o f such confusing terminology as artisanal-, traditional-, and small-scale fishing that cultural anthropologists have generally used in order to define and describe various non-capitalist relations o f production. I should mention at this moment that I do not purport to provide a


34 comprehensive literature review; doing so would not only be impossible but preposterous. The goal will be to narrow the broad (and sometimes disjointed) scope o f maritime anthropology in order to dissipate the confusion surrounding it. The chapter is divided in three parts. The first part discusses the confusion found in most maritime anthropological studies and argues that inconsistent conceptualization o f fishing as both labor process and form of economic organization obscures its most prominent features. Such confusion has persisted primarily due to the fact that terms like traditional-,

artisanal-,

and

modem

fishing

(among

others)

have

been

used

interchangeably in order to refer to disparate petty production forms in the fishing industry. By discussing and critiquing McGoodwin’s (1990) and Russell and Poopetch’s (1990) ethnographic research, I will argue that they have confounded major differences between low and high capitalization in the fishing industry in ambiguous categories like “traditional” and “modem.” The second part is devoted to identify and explain the elements that comprise the working definition o f small-scale commercial fishing that will be used in this dissertation. It is based on a modified version o f Cook and Binford’s (1990:8-11) definition o f petty commodity production in order to highlight and evaluate contemporary petty production forms and conditions in Puerto Rico’s fisheries. Finally, the third part focuses on the study o f state intervention in so-called traditional fisheries and critically analyzes competing views that privilege direct state intervention, on one hand, and those that privilege independent models o f production with potential to unleash local processes o f capital accumulation, on another.


35

Economic anthropology and the study of small-scale fishing enterprises: Critique o f a maritime muddle Fishing has attracted the attention o f anthropologists since they began to study the evolution and transformation o f economic systems. But in contrast to the wealth o f data produced in regards to the study o f hunting-gathering and horticulturist societies, detailed information about fishing societies was seldom published in textbooks and ethnographies. When anthropologists documented the economic practices and behavior o f maritime groups, fishing was usually discussed as a subsidiary activity that agricultural laborers undertook in order to supplement primary economic needs. It was not uncommon to read descriptions about fishing’s contributions that satisfied the subsistence needs o f foragers and agriculturists. In fact, as an activity characterized by collecting and trapping aquatic organisms from rivers, lagoons and the ocean, fishing was considered to be a main component o f the economy o f “primitive societies,” as anthropologists commonly labeled many non-capitalist forms o f economic organization. Even today, many experts consider fishing’s inability to produce higher economic outputs a major characteristic o f its “primitiveness,” which is epitomized by fishermen’s reliance on inefficient hunting, gathering, and trapping technologies.2 Therefore, economic anthropological discourses on rural production have considered fishing a marginal subsistence activity. In the case o f Puerto Rico, for instance, Mintz’s (1956:360-363) description o f agricultural production among the rural sugar proletariat in a southern municipality constitutes a well-known example. He first developed the idea o f fishing as a “subsidiary economic activity” and later, relying on oral accounts made by rural workers, as “a recreational activity” and “a sport” (see Mintz 1974:22, 61-63). His theoretical framework was developed in conjunction with Julian Steward’s (1956) seminal


36 ethnographic representation o f Puerto Rican agrarian society during the late 1940s. One o f its most conspicuous aspects was a lack o f emphasis on the contributions that fishing made to the reproduction o f the rural household economy. This analysis also influenced anthropological representations o f rural fishing in the Caribbean, as Lambros Comitas demonstrated in the early 1970s. In his study o f economic activities in rural Jamaica, Comitas (1973:157) found that “an entire socio-economic stratum of rural Jamaican society is not easily accounted for in any o f the taxonomic formulations presently available for the Caribbean area.” He was also puzzled by the fact that half the rural Jamaican population was not directly involved in plantation economy, which at the time was the main economic activity, and used as a referent by anthropologists in order to construct constraining categories like peasants, farmers and plantation workers. Most rural coastal laborers in Jamaica engaged in multiple occupations and combined fishing with “own-account work such as cultivation, or various forms o f wage employment, or some combination o f the three” (Comitas 1973:165). Some anthropologists have correctly acknowledged the existence o f important structural and technological differences between fishing and other economic activities such as agriculture. For example, Raymond Firth (1968:26-27) has summarized the major differences that commonly exist between fishing and agriculture in terms o f the decision making process involved in planning for the accumulation o f usable equipment and preparation against seasonal changes. Planning agricultural production is affected in many ways. First, agricultural yield is largely seasonal with long periods where no income is received while the yield from fishing is daily. Therefore, there is more opportunity in fishing for the entry of workers whose main interests lie elsewhere.


37

Second, agriculturists who receive the majority o f their crops in bulk at one time plan in advance and decide what they will retain and sell; they can also estimate their margin o f savings against their consumption months. In contrast, fishermen must calculate against greater uncertainty because they cannot set much in bulk and divide for daily consumption. Third, there are also differences in terms o f the nutrition and food habits because the agriculturists’ main crop is usually their staple food but small-scale fishermen do not live mainly on fish. Hence, for the latter exchange of their product or part-time agriculture becomes a necessity. Fourth, the nature o f the production unit is different with more complete family activity found among agriculturists than fishermen, where women and children usually participate on shore in the transformation and marketing o f the catches as well as helping to repair the fishing gear and equipment (see Firth 1968:22-27). Most anthropologists who work with rural populations, while noting these structural and technological differences, tend to agree that both categories represent particular dimensions o f peasant economic adaptations and activities (see Acheson 1981, Faris 1977, Leap 1977, McGoodwin 1990, Russell and Poopetch 1990). Furthermore, they also point out that there exist clear distinctions between land-based and maritime peasants, particularly in terms o f their active engagement with the natural and social environments. In an important review article that framed the contours o f maritime anthropology until the early 1980s, James Acheson (1981) emphasized the risky environmental and social conditions of fish production and marketing and argued that, unlike in agriculture, “fishing devices are not simply transferences of land hunting devices, and that many technological features o f fishing never appear in hunting devices


38

used outside o f the water” (Acheson 1981:276). His emphasis on technological and environmental factors that may accentuate fishing’s uncertainty has obscured its analysis as a significant form o f production and lead to poor conceptualization o f fishing as both labor process and form o f economic organization. The following quote summarizes a common perspective that underscores maritime anthropology’s representation o f fishing as unique economic practice: the sea is an alien an dangerous environment, and one in which man is poorly equipped to survive. It is a realm that man enters only with the support o f artificial devices (i.e. boats, canoes, platforms, scuba gear, or other technologies), and then only when weather and sea conditions allow. The constant threat o f storm, accident, or mechanical failure makes fishing at sea a very dangerous occupation anywhere in the world.... The fact that fishermen are operating on a flat, undifferentiated surface and are exploiting animals that are difficult to see increases uncertainty (Acheson 1981:276). This partial rendering o f maritime adaptations and activities has plagued standard anthropological literature on fishing to this day. Fortunately, statements like these have not remained unchallenged. John Cordell (1989) presented one o f the first criticisms o f the current o f thought that view fishing as unique when he refuted Acheson’s distinction between land-based agriculturists and maritime peasants in terms o f the “very heterogeneous and uncertain environment” of the sea. For Cordell (1989:18-19), the emphasis on environmentally risky conditions overlooks the fact that most fishermen are capable o f knowing, for instance, the migratory patterns o f most species as well as weather conditions and periodic environmental phenomena that fishermen generally confront. As he correctly suggested, fishermen “may well be at the mercy o f other things -middlemen, inflation, lack o f credit- but on many occasions tropical fishermen know where the fish are” (Cordell 1989:19). In fact, Acheson himself has recently


39

acknowledged that fishermen’s capacity to accurately know weather and sea conditions can lead to profitable fishing excursions and, more importantly, to sound paradigms o f marine resources utilization and conservation (see Acheson and Wilson 1996). It is appropriate then to suggest that Acheson’s perspective has been influenced by renewed emphasis on “traditional systems o f knowledge” that purports to integrate the fishermen’s traditional practices into modem(ist) programs of development and conservation (see, for instance, Pinkerton 1989, and Ruddle and Dyer 1994). Acheson’s (1981) early focus on environmental risks and constraints, in fact, underscores the reality that the study o f fishing as a significant form o f socio-economic production has been (and continues to be) marginal to the development o f economic anthropological theories. The emphasis on fishermen’s adaptive responses to uncertain environmental and social conditions can be noted in the title o f several major publications such as North Atlantic Fishermen: Anthropological Essays on Modem Fishing, North Atlantic Maritime Cultures: Anthropological Essays on Changing Adaptations, and Maritime Adaptations: Essays on Contemporary Fishing Communities.3 Until the publication of Raymond Firth’s Malay Fishermen in 1946,4 maritime anthropological studies focused mainly on the contribution that fishing made to so-called primitive and tribal economies. While the early studies simply described fishing as a subsidiary activity that supplemented hunting, gathering and agriculture, Firth concentrated on the structural and technological aspects that underscored fish production. His contribution to maritime anthropology is threefold. Firstly, by identifying fishing’s prominent social and economic elements and structure o f production, Firth was able to distinguish it from other rural activities like agriculture. Secondly, he applied successfully neo-classical economic


40 models to study fishing in non-capitalist societies such as Malaysia in the early 20th century, a situation previously considered unsuitable for the application of Western formal economic models o f analysis. Thirdly, Firth relied on the systematic and careful application o f ethnographic research methods that contributed to enhance his sophisticated economic analysis (see Breton and Lopez Estrada 1989:43-45). In general, his main contribution lies in the ability to bridge anthropological theories and methods with the intention of constructing thorough economic analyses o f fishing.5 The early emphasis on the distinction between land-based and maritime peasants was rapidly superseded when anthropologists began to provide detailed accounts o f diverse cultural organization forms among rural petty producers. The enormous variety o f fishing adaptations and production relations, as well as o f socio-cultural patterns o f organization, has been considered a major hindrance in maritime anthropology’s efforts to render an unambiguous definition o f small-scale commercial fishing. For example, many anthropologists have reproduced the conventional belief that small-scale commercial fishermen comprise a relatively small segment o f the working population that includes mostly poor rural laborers with low educational backgrounds. In addition, they have generally represented the small-scale fishermen as individualistic subjects who lack motivations to innovate or adopt new fishing technologies and are content utilizing the same “traditional” gear and equipment they have known for long periods o f time (see McGoodwin 1990:10-20). These kinds of statements, and others that focus on fishing’s social and cultural characteristics, while grounded on perceived economic conditions in most fishing communities, contribute to misrepresent the structure o f production in which small-scale fishermen are generally involved.


41 McGoodwin (1990) and Russell and Poopetch (1990) have made serious attempts to examine the structural and cultural aspects o f fishing in view o f the increased importance o f capitalist development among various groups o f fishermen mostly in nonWestem societies. But in spite of their careful explanations, the categories they have proposed do not help dispel ambiguous definitions o f fishing and have thus exacerbated the confusion o f existing terminology. For example, in his attempt to collapse cultural differences among various fishermen groups, McGoodwin (1990:8) has identified six categories (native, coastal, inshore, tribal, peasant, and traditional), besides small-scale and artisanal, that anthropologists have commonly used in order to describe a wide array o f fishing practices. Due to the fact that most anthropologists use the category that best suits the case at hand, confusion arises when disparate labor forms, systems o f household organization, and cultural and social practices are subsumed under poorly defined categories that have little resemblance with fishing practices observed in other world regions. Russell and Poopetch’s (1990) efforts to clarify ambiguous definitions and representations o f fishing are equally misled. Drawing from their ethnographic research with commercial fishermen in the inner gulf o f Thailand, they have asserted “the variation that exists within the commercial fishing sector” and collapsed cultural differences into two broad categories: traditional and modem fishing (see Russell and Poopetch 1990:174). According to them, the role that kinship plays in the organization of production is the most helpful element to differentiate between traditional and modem fishermen in capitalist societies. In other words, kinship organization allows traditional fishermen to have a more stable and reliable labor pool than that commonly found among modem fishermen; as


42 well, kinship connections enhance the fishermen’s possibilities to secure credit and loans more rapidly. In contrast, modem fishermen working for larger fishing fleets generally engage in more impersonal relationships with the owners o f trawlers. Russell and Poopetch (1990) thus consider that kinship organization is the key cultural element explaining differences between fishing practices and not merely a cursory element that maritime anthropologists must capture and describe.6 Russell and Poopetch’s (1990) distinction between traditional and modem fishing is not only based on the existence o f different kinship arrangements in fishing communities and the utilization o f different fishing technologies by commercial fishermen but also on the degree that capital investment is necessary to maintain and further production. They tacitly acknowledge the importance o f capitalization and innovation in the fishing industry when using modem fishing in order to refer to fish production with trawlers that rely on sophisticated mechanical devices. Russell and Poopetch’s (1990) utilization o f traditional fishing is similar to McGoodwin’s (1990) utilization o f smallscale fishing, although they both seem to disagree on a valid definition. For instance, while McGoodwin (1990) suggests that small capital commitment distinguishes smallscale fishing, Russell and Poopetch (1990:175) prefer to use petty commodity production because it “is a valid form to distinguish kin-based from non-kin-based forms of commercial fishing in capitalist economies.” Furthermore, Russell and Poopetch (1990) argue that petty commodity production helps to articulate a working definition o f smallscale fishing because it highlights the different relationships that exist between structural organizations o f production and broader socio-cultural elements.


43 McGoodwin (1990:9) has subsequently defended his utilization o f small-scale fishing arguing that it is a helpful concept because “it is the most encompassing” o f all the categories he has identified. However, his definition o f small-scale fishing, as well as Russell and Poopetch’s (1990) utilization o f petty commodity production, remains vague because they have not identified and explained the main elements that distinguish each concept. For instance, the discourse o f economic anthropology defines small-scale fishing as a form o f petty commodity production in which fishermen control most stages o f the productive process. Petty commodity production differs from capitalism in a number of ways, the most important being that in capitalist relations o f production direct producers receive a wage for their labor power. And since neither McGoodwin (1990) nor Russell and Poopetch (1990) give an account o f this distinction their discussion o f petty production in the fishing industry gives the impression that there are various modes of production co-existing side by side in most fishing communities. More importantly, their utilization o f either small-scale fishing or petty commodity production to represent the fishing economy lack an explanation o f the basic elements that constitute small-scale fishing as a significant form o f economic production. What is lacking in most anthropological studies o f fishing, as Cook and Binford (1990:8) have suggested in the context o f rural peasant-artisan production in Mexico, is a “concept broad enough in scope to allow us to approach small-scale production in a variety o f empirical circumstances.” McGoodwin’s (1990:8) definition o f small-scale commodity production approximates this goal especially when he suggest that all categories proposed to represent fishing “have in common [a] relatively small capital commitment” to sustain production. As the historical and ethnographic records indicate,


44 many commercial fishermen catch limited amounts o f fish for which reason they are unable to generate the large amounts o f capital required to upgrade fishing technologies. Small-scale commercial fishermen thus depend on capital investment from external agents such as middlemen and national governments. The emphasis on small capital commitment to sustain (or further) production is the main aspect of the definition o f small-scale fishing that I propose to use in this dissertation. It helps reduce the ambiguity created by the interchangeable use of such concepts as traditional, modem, and artisanal fishing while taking into account the significant role that cultural and social norms play in the lives o f commercial fishermen. In addition, it highlights the differences between petty commodity production and petty capitalism but does not ignore the possible emergence o f the latter from the former.

Reconceptualizing small-scale fishing in capitalist development So-called maritime anthropological studies can benefit from the theoretical analysis advanced by certain tendencies of economic anthropology, particularly those that focus on the relationships between peasants, artisans and peasant-artisans (see Cook and Binford 1990). One important element that both land-based and maritime peasants have in common is the fact that they “directly produce some of their own subsistence requirements or produce for exchange in order to acquire their subsistence” (Cook and Binford 1990:9). In essence, I will use the concept small-scale commercial fishing in order to refer to household units that engage in fishing with the intention o f generating an income and not simply to fulfill their subsistence needs. It draws heavily from Cook and Binford’s


45 (1990:8-11) discussion o f petty commodity production and includes the following elements: 1)

the fishermen control the production process by owning and operating the fishing vessels and gear and by relying on non waged labor.

2)

the fishing gear employed is relatively inexpensive and technological innovations are very limited. The vessels and some fishing gear can be constructed by the fishermen themselves or by the craftsmen living in the fishing communities, but they may also purchase them from outside their communities or directly from government agencies.

3)

production is regularly undertaken for market exchange. The catch is generally sold in the local markets, whether to a fishermen association, a restaurant, a middleman or directly to consumers in the streets, the beachfront or from the fishermen’s homes.

4)

the fishing production units operate independently from one another and are not tied to the demands of local merchants or fish dealers.

5)

most fishermen produce to ensure the simple reproduction o f the household units but local accumulation o f capital can be achieved in special circumstances, for instance, when productivity increases to the point at which labor must be hired to facilitate further increases.

These elements o f petty commodity production will help explain why in countries like Puerto Rico a large number o f commercial fishermen engage in multiple labor patterns in order to supplement their household incomes. The existence o f multiple labor patterns among commercial fishermen is one of the most remarkable features o f small-


46 scale fishing throughout the world and is directly related to the structure o f production in rural fishing communities (Firth 1968:22-27, see also Valdes Pizzini 1990a:61-72, Comitas 1962, 1973, Johnson 1972, Price 1966). In addition, this definition is broad and general enough so as to account for the analysis o f the specific conditions o f production found in different world regions and is thus applicable to a variety o f empirical circumstances. For instance, in the case o f Puerto Rico, all the elements contained in the definition o f petty commodity production given above can be easily observed in most fishing communities across the island. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, Puerto Rico’s fisheries are characterized by the predominance o f petty commodity production forms even though petty capitalism is present in some areas, such as in the offshore fishery o f Puerto de la Corona, in southwest Puerto Rico. In the next section o f the chapter, I briefly explain the development o f capitalist relations o f production in Puerto de la Corona but a fuller analysis has been provided by Valdes Pizzini (1985:204-304). This definition is also helpful because it eliminates ambiguous and confusing terminology like artisanal and traditional fishing commonly used interchangeably in maritime anthropological studies. In this manner, artisanal fishing will be limited to describe such cases where “fisher-artisans fabricate much o f their gear by weaving their own nets, fashioning fish pots or traps or employing crude, homemade watercraft” (see McGoodwin 1990:9). It is necessary to point out that this definition o f artisanal fishing is inadequate to analyze Puerto Rico’s fisheries because most fishermen purchase materials outside the communities they live in so as to build nets and fish pots or acquire fiberglass vessels through government agencies. Similarly, traditional fishing will be used here to refer to a set o f characteristics, like widespread use o f small wooden boats propelled with


47 oars, use o f relatively inexpensive fishing gear that fishermen themselves build, and inadequate fish marketing; these are features that conventionally oppose it to “modem” fishing. Once again, this is not the predominant situation in Puerto Rico, where the federal and Commonwealth governments have transformed the island’s traditional fisheries into modem commercial enterprises. The dynamics o f this transformation is the research problem that I will analyze in the following chapters. The role that both the United States and Puerto Rican governments have played in this transformation must be examined theoretically in order to understand the nature o f petty production in countries and regions where small-scale fishing still represents an important economic option.

Government intervention and the quest for small-scale fisheries modernization Especially during the 1970s and early 1980s, the anthropological literature on maritime fisheries focused mostly on technological transformations in so-called traditional

fisheries and the emergence o f various socio-cultural changes that

accompanied such transformation. As a result o f this emphasis, government intervention in local fishing affairs was reduced mainly to the study o f technology and capital transfers.

More

importantly,

maritime

anthropology’s

concern

with

fisheries

modernization led to the study o f the ways whereby small-scale commercial fishermen have adapted to various socio-cultural changes brought about by increased government intervention. Studies have focused on the ideological underpinnings behind the creation and implementation o f fisheries development programs (Antler and Faris 1979, Faris 1982); the (usually negative) impacts o f modem fishing technologies on the social, cultural and political organization of small-scale fishing communities (Britan 1977, Epple


48 1977, McCay 1977); and the emergence o f economic processes that can lead to social differentiation among small-scale commercial fishermen (Breton 1973, 1977, Gordon 1981, Valdes Pizzini 1985; see also Meltzer 1994 and Johnston 1987). Studies of the introduction o f modem fishing technologies during the 1970s and early

1980s placed little emphasis on the socio-political factors enabling the

incorporation o f small-scale commercial fishermen into the national governments’ legal and political frameworks. As a result, most maritime anthropological studies lack a careful appraisal of the impacts that the economic transformations o f the global capitalist world system have had on small-scale fishing. It is well known that the incorporation o f small-scale fishing communities into the imaginary of national economic development became entrenched during the 1960s and 1970s, as many national governments invested heavily on modem fishing technologies with the intention to fully utilize offshore marine resources. Also during these decades the federal and Commonwealth governments evaluated the feasibility o f establishing an offshore fishing industry in Puerto Rico but abandoned their efforts when it became clear that there were little opportunities to increase fish productivity in the tropical waters o f the Caribbean Sea (see O ’Brien 1972). Likewise, the Puerto Rican government lacked the substantial amounts o f capital required for establishing an efficient offshore fishing fleet. These and other issues related to the implementation of fisheries development programs in Puerto Rico will be discussed in detail in the next chapter. The efforts that national governments undertook in order to promote fisheries development during the 1960s and 1970s also evidenced the desire to gain control and ownership o f the coastal and marine resources and in the process legitimized the national


49 governments’ right to exploit them. In 1976, for instance, many nations adopted the international law that allowed them to expand the limits o f their coastal waters up to 200 miles from the shoreline. The United Nations ratified the law in 1982 and it led to the creation and legalization o f the Exclusive Economic Zone, the international law that currently regulates all fishing practices carried out by foreign fishing fleets in continental and insular platforms. The national governments can obviously establish commercial treaties and agreements with other nations in order to monitor and regulate commercial fishing activities within their exclusive economic zones (see Smith 1977). The creation and legalization of an institutional global mechanism to regulate fishing activities in coastal and oceanic waters increased the power o f national governments to promote the development, administration and conservation of the maritime fisheries. It also attempted to restrict access to several endangered fish stocks seriously threatened by continued excursions in common fishing areas (Hardin 1968, see also Feeny et. al). Therefore, broader political and institutional considerations make the study o f small-scale fishing within the context o f the consolidation o f national frameworks o f economic development a relevant topic of analysis. Controversies regarding the conservation and administration o f natural resources used in common, like the fisheries, have persisted since Hardin (1968) proclaimed the now famous dictum o f “the tragedy o f the commons.” As a biologist concerned with natural resource conservation, he only suggested that either private or public (state) control o f the commons is desirable but overlooked the role played by national governments in reaching such goals. Maritime anthropologists have offered a different interpretation. For the sake o f discussion, I focus on two broad areas. On the one hand, I


50

shall discuss the studies whose main argument is that fisheries modernization can only take place when national governments lead deliberate efforts to transform so-called traditional fisheries. Faris (1977:247) presented a remarkable example when he argued that “in fishing peasantries, capitalist penetration strategy has to await and rely on state intervention.” Accordingly, his contention that fishing makes it difficult to embody labor in the resource for potential capital accumulation dovetails perfectly with the analysis o f some fishery economists, such as Gordon (1954), who represent small-scale fishing as an industry showing little opportunities for surplus production and capital accumulation. On the other hand, I shall discuss the studies that suggest that fisheries modernization can take place independent o f government intervention in the affairs o f small-scale fishing communities. Anthropologists like Valdes Pizzini (1985), Gordon (1981) and Howell (1995) have demonstrated that, in fishing communities where conditions allow for the emergence o f local processes o f capital accumulation, commercial fishermen are able to engage in productive relations that can lead to autonomous economic development processes. Faris (1982) has argued in favor of capitalist penetration based on his analysis o f the relocation of the “traditional fishing community” o f Cat Harbour, in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1967-1968 to an area away from the coast. For him, this relocation plan entailed an example o f capital rationalization or, as he defined it, “greater appropriation o f value from labor” (1982:179). Traditionally, Cat Harbour fishermen pursued an inshore fishery involving principally the harvest o f cod in fixed traps that was processed into a salted product sold to fish buyers servicing the world market (Faris 1982:181). The relocation o f the traditional community responded to the Canadian government’s desire


51

to “mak[e] dependent and mobile laborers available to industrial capitalism,” a process that also “required moving labor out of the fishery” (see Antler and Faris 1979:130). With the onset o f industrialization, many fishermen rapidly abandoned the community to find industrial jobs in places as far distant as Toronto and Labrador City in mainland Canada. Antler and Faris (1979) have further analyzed Cat Harbour’s relocation and pointed to the ideological maneuverings behind the decision to relocate the traditional community which, according to them, was based on a program for economic development primarily in terms o f industrialization. In doing so, their analysis resembles Pantojas Garcia’s study (1990) o f the ideological underpinnings o f Puerto Rico’s program for industrialization since the late 1940s. Its significance to understanding fisheries modernization processes will be examined further in the next chapter. In contrast to Faris (1982) and Antler and Faris (1979), Valdes Pizzini’s (1985) ethnography o f the fishery o f Puerto de la Corona documents the socio-economic and political processes that have led to the economic success o f the local fishery, which in turn have enabled the local fishermen to engage in offshore fish production. According to him, the relative success o f the fishery of Puerto de la Corona (when compared to other fisheries in Puerto Rico) has been the result o f capital accumulation by a small number o f fish dealers who now control both fish production and marketing in the region. Beginning in the 1940s, the control that fish dealers had over fish production increased steadily, enabling them to acquire the vessels and fishing gear o f those fishermen who could no longer supply the local demands for fresh fish. The fish dealers’ control o f the means o f production created the conditions that allowed them to invest in production. The social differentiation process between fishermen and fish dealers increased as more and more


52

commercial fishermen were compelled to fish for the newly established fish houses, or neveras. It then intensified to the point that most fishermen were tied to the fish dealers’ demands, since dealers supplied them with the needed equipment and gear. According to Valdes Pizzini (1985), when the Puerto Rican government began to introduce modem fishing technologies into the island’s fisheries during the late 1960s, the fishery o f Puerto de la Corona already was a capitalist enterprise characterized by reel line fishing in the offshore areas between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Gordon (1981) and Howell (1995) have also documented similar cases o f autonomous economic development in their studies o f the lobster fishery o f San Pedro, in Belize, and the herring fishery in northern Japan, respectively. The fishermen from San Pedro, a Caribbean island off the Belize coast, catch primarily lobsters to export to European and United States markets. Since the 1950s, lobster production greatly intensified as a result o f the high demand from United States markets and the high prices paid for this commodity. According to Gordon (1981), lobster production and exportation relied primarily on capital investments by some large and powerful United States enterprises that came to dominate the market well into the late 1970s, at the time when the Belizean government began to intervene in the local economic affairs. But not everything worked out well for the San Pedrano fishermen as they confronted serious problems to marketing their catches whenever the United States lobster enterprises refused to purchase their fish. The fishermen then began to organize themselves in cooperatives and associations and to pressure the national government to set up an infrastructure that would allow them to maintain the high productivity o f the lobster industry. In fact, during the mid-1970s production by the lobster fishermen skyrocketed


53

and lobster fishing became one o f the most important contributors to the National Gross Domestic Product (see Gordon 1981:220-232). From Gordon’s analysis (1981), it seems clear that the Belizean government was compelled to intervene in the local affairs o f San Pedro as a result o f the pressures exercised by the commercial fishermen. In other words, the national government intervened at the request of the local fishermen in order to try to reduce the control that United States lobster enterprises exerted on local production. In many ways, the Belizean government’s response was rather similar to the Japanese government’s response to the transformation o f the herring fishery between 1830 and 1860 (see Howell 1995). The transformation o f the herring fishery in Hokkaido, in northern Japan, to capitalism “came from within the fishery itself, but all developments were shaped by the political and institutional environment of the state” (see Howell 1995:177). During the Tokugawa Period (o f the early modem Japanese history, between 1603 and 1868), herring production took two forms: the family fishery, in which a multitude o f independent petty fishermen worked with household members, and the contract fishery, in which merchants especially licensed by the Matsumae domain, or the government merchant institution, enjoyed a variety o f economic and administrative powers. After the Meiji Restoration o f 1868, the contract-fishery operators lost their privileges and the entire fishery was opened to exploitation by anyone who cared to participate, although production remained divided between the family and entrepreneurial fisheries (Howell 1995:2). The Meiji government paved the way for the transition from a contract to a capitalist fishery by instituting a series o f legal reforms between the time it assumed power and the end of the 19th century. The reforms did not actively discriminate


54 against the family fishermen so much as they made the fishery an attractive investment for up-and-coming capitalist entrepreneurs. Some family fishermen did nevertheless successfully establish themselves as petty capitalists; others continued to do things the old way, relying mostly on household labor; and still others -those who could neither move up nor stay put- left fishing entirely or became part o f the seasonal labor force (see Howell 1995:22). While Faris (1982) and Antler and Faris (1979) provide cogent arguments for the critical examination o f government intervention in the transformation o f so-called traditional fisheries, the particularities o f the Cat Harbour fishery differ greatly from the circumstances of fisheries development and modernization in the Caribbean. In fact, Breton’s analysis (1973, 1977) o f capitalist development and economic specialization in the Venezuelan fisheries and Epple’s analysis (1977) o f fisheries modernization in Grenada have greater relevance to the analysis of fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico. For example, the transformation o f Grenville’s traditional fishery, in eastern Grenada, after the introduction of gasoline engines directly examines the government’s role in the construction of fisheries policies and regulations that seek to increase fish productivity (see Epple 1977). As a result o f direct government intervention, the local fishery experienced unexpected levels o f economic success that mirror the outcomes of Puerto R j c o ’s

fisheries modernization programs from the 1950s to the 1970s.7 Like in Puerto

Rico, economic success brought about by fisheries modernization also created conditions allowing for the organization o f fishing cooperatives in Grenada. In contrast to Antler and Faris (1979), Epple (1977) emphasizes the program for fisheries modernization rather than broader aspects o f national economic development such as industrialization.


55

Fans’ (1982) and Antler and Faris’ (1979) analyses cannot be easily dismissed, however, for their model accounts for some of the most drastic results of modernization within the context o f increased government promotion o f fisheries and industrial development. More significantly, they ground their model and analysis in a rigorous study of national capitalist development and the ideological tenets that underscore it. Their analysis is thus necessary to understand the fate o f small-scale fishing in Puerto Rico’s development. I will argue, moreover, that it can be enhanced when used in combination with Maiolo and Orbach’s (1982) analysis o f fisheries policy and modernization. Maiolo and Orbach (1982:2-3) have distinguished the creation o f smallscale fisheries policies and regulations, a process they call “systems o f aggregated authority,” from their actual downward implementation, whereby local fishing communities are integrated into the national economic development frameworks. As they have suggested, both processes are mutually exclusive and the success of the system o f aggregated authority is contingent upon the possibilities o f fruitfully realizing its application. Maiolo and Orbach’s analysis (1982) attests to the fact that most fisheries development programs implemented in various world regions during the last five decades were constructed with rather limited input from small-scale commercial fishermen. It is hard to speculate what the outcomes o f fisheries modernization would have been had “traditional systems of knowledge” been taken into consideration in the preparation o f fisheries development models and policies. All I can suggest at this point is that Maiolo and Orbach’s model (1982) can be adequately used to analyze fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico for the following three reasons. First, they emphasize the multiple but partial


56

and unequal forms through which government intervention can incorporate fishing communities into the national frameworks o f economic development. Second, their model is based on a careful attempt to go beyond previous maritime anthropological foci on the impacts that technology transfers have had on cultural and social relations among small-scale commercial fishermen. Third, they are critical of direct state intervention in the fishing industry at a time when most national governments were heavily involved in the promotion o f economic modernization models in so-called traditional societies. However, Maiolo and Orbach’s (1982) utilization o f modernization must be questioned because they tend to equate it with acculturation processes when they try to explain why small-scale fishermen adapt to new cultural and socio-economic conditions stemming from the downward implementation o f fisheries policy. It is true that fisheries modernization always unleash processes o f cultural change and economic transformation that modify social relations o f production among commercial fishermen, but Maiolo and Orbach (1990) seem to ignore that it also involves negotiation o f the mechanisms necessary to achieve culture change and economic transformation. In fact, it is surprising that their emphasis on acculturation processes bears resemblance to some anthropological studies o f cultural and socio-economic change among peasants carried out during the 1950s and 1960s that represented them as passive subjects. The least consistent element o f Maiolo and Orbach’s (1982) model o f fisheries modernization is the neglect o f smallscale fishermen’s capacity to negotiate the forms through which fisheries modernization affect their culture and livelihoods. Like all maritime anthropologists who have misrepresented fishermen’s agency and political commitment, Maiolo and Orbach (1982)


57

cannot explain why small-scale fishing continues to support a large number o f rural dwellers inhabiting primarily crowded coastal regions in so many countries. I should state at this point that, with few exceptions, fishing has never played a significant role in the construction of major economic development programs implemented by national governments since the mid-20th century on. There is ample agreement that fishing still remains a marginal productive activity undertaken by groups o f fishermen who now have to compete with national (and foreign) fishing fleets for the exploitation o f limited marine resources (see The Times Picayune 1996). As we might expect, small-scale fishermen occupy a disadvantageous position against bigger fishing fleets roaming the oceans and using sophisticated mechanical devices with the capacity to deplete endangered fish stocks. The social, economic, and technological gap that separates small-scale fishermen from bigger fishing fleets have increased steadily since the 1960s, when many national governments invested heavily to improve their offshore fishing fleets. Fisheries modernization, and the ensuing competition between the world’s biggest producers o f fishery products since the late 1960s, have brought about a decrease in commercial fish and shellfish landings and the degradation of many coastal environments (see, for instance, McGoodwin 1990:13-17 and The Times Picayune 1996). In spite o f relentless drives toward fisheries modernization and continued expansion o f industrial fishing, fisheries modernization -as the epigraph to this chapter clearly indicates- has not eliminated the contributions that small-scale fishermen make to the world’s fish production. Instead, their contributions to the global production o f marine foodstuffs have increased in recent years and provided a sizable share o f the domestic gross production in several nations. For example, the United Nations Food and


58

Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently reported that the number o f small-scale fishermen has more than doubled since 1970 and today they account for approximately 3% o f the world’s active rural population (see FAO 1998a: l).8 In this report, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded the following: in 1990, whereas the number of people economically active in agriculture increased to reach 1.2 billion (implying a growth of 15% compared to 1980), fishers increased by 72% to reach 28.5 million people, thus showing an opposite trend and increasing 2.3% the percentage o f the agriculture sector’s economically active population accounted for by fishers and fish farmers (FAO 1998a:l) Similarly, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that small-scale fishing contributed nearly 40% o f the total amount of landings reported globally in 1996 (see FAO 1997). The contribution o f small-scale fishermen to the global production o f fishery products is important in certain regions o f the world, a fact that forces us to make important distinctions between different world fishing regions. For instance, in Asia, where 84% o f the small-scale commercial fishermen are estimated to dwell (FAO 1998a:l), their contribution to the economy o f many rural coastal communities has steadily increased. The growing importance o f the Asian countries for the promotion and development o f small-scale fisheries is even more relevant when we take into consideration that most Asian countries are among the biggest producers and consumers o f fishery products and invest heavily in aquaculture projects. In aquaculture alone, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that five Asian countries (China, India, Japan, the Republic o f Korea and the Philippines) invest close to $90 million and produce over 80% of the total volume o f aquaculture products. Aquaculture, or the cultivation o f marine animals under controlled environments, is the


59

main factor explaining the increase in the total amount o f fish landings recently reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO 1998b:3). The global production o f fishery products peaked to approximately 112.3 million tons in 1995 (FAO 1997:3). As mentioned earlier, nearly 40% o f the total amount o f the landings come from the catches that small-scale commercial fishermen make. In many ways, the increase o f small-scale commercial fishing has taken place hand in hand with the degradation and/or depletion of some major marine resources and ecological zones. Many fishery biologists and economists now consider that some major fish stocks that earlier supplied the world demand for fishery products, like the Pacific northwest salmon fishery and the North Atlantic codfish fishery, are currently overharvested. As the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported recently, “a corollary is that there has been a gradual increase in the estimated amount o f stocks requiring management, from almost none in 1950 to over 60% in 1994” (FAO 1997:7). Hence, it is necessary to acknowledge the fact that fishing is enmeshed in a contradictory situation characterized by continuous investment in modem fishing technologies despite the evidence revealing that most marine resources are rapidly dwindling due to increased capitalization in high yield fishing technologies. In view o f this reality, many small-scale commercial fishermen will prolong their survival clinging to the margins o f the world capitalist economy.

Conclusions and recapitulation The contradictory situation arising from the implementation o f fisheries modernization programs in light of the “crisis in the world’s fisheries” (McGoodwin 1990) has significant implications for the analysis o f fisheries development in Puerto


60 Rico. The rapid development and modernization o f the world’s fisheries since the 1960s have had negative impacts on small-scale fishing economies and it is now uncertain what their future status might be. That the world fishery resources are in crisis is hardly a secret (see McGoodwin 1990, The Times Picayune 1996). In regards to the particular conditions o f the Puerto Rican fisheries, I have already mentioned that the general consensus among experts is that local fishery resources are practically overharvested and have reached their limits o f sustainable production. The role played by Puerto Rico’s government in the promotion o f fisheries modernization has been twofold. On the one hand, it can be reasonably argued that it has positively transformed the infrastructure o f production from a subsistence base to a modem and commercial one. On the other hand, ill-devised government development programs have negatively impacted the marine and coastal resources to the point that they have further the elimination o f various fish species with high commercial value. The specific manifestations and outcomes of fisheries development programs and policies in Puerto Rico will be explained in the next chapter. In this chapter, I have discussed the anthropological muddle surrounding the studies on small-scale commercial fishing and argued that it is a result o f poorly conceptualized

notions o f fishing as a significant production

form. Maritime

anthropology is plagued by inconsistent theorization that views differences between socalled traditional and modem fishing in cultural terms and thus downplays economic and technical differences that are more adequately explained by making reference to different levels o f capitalization. The lack o f consistent theorization, which would enable to approach fishing both as labor process and form of economic organization, fueled the emergence o f ambiguous concepts such as artisanal, traditional, and modem fishing


61 (among others) that commonly misrepresent the internal structure o f fish production, especially when seen in relation to other forms o f rural peasant production. Maritime anthropology’s undertheorized character was indeed recognized a long time ago (see Acheson 1981:275, Breton and Lopez Estrada 1989:42-58). Efforts to reduce confusion and ambiguity must identify and clarify the elements o f production that may help to construct a workable definition. Borrowing from Cook and Binford’s (1990) definition o f petty commodity production, I was able to create a definition o f small-scale commercial fishing easily applicable to the historical and current circumstances o f fish production in Puerto Rico. I devoted a good portion o f the chapter to discuss the role played by national governments in the promotion o f fisheries development and modernization and considered maritime anthropology’s contributions to explain socio-cultural and political transformation processes in so-called traditional fishing communities. In doing so, I reduced the vast literature on fisheries modernization in order to discuss the introduction of sophisticated fishing technologies and called attention to the significance that ideology holds in explanations o f economic development models in small-scale fishing communities. It was anchored on a comparison between Fans’ (1982) and Antler and Faris’ (1979) contention that direct state intervention is necessary to promote local fisheries development and Valdes Pizzini’s (1985), Gordon’s (1981) and Howell’s (1995) demonstration that alternative paths to fisheries development can exist independent o f direct state intervention. The case o f the fishery o f Puerto de la Corona (Valdes Pizzini 1985), where local accumulation o f capital was possible because o f the fish dealers’ control o f and investment in the means o f production, presented a convincing argument to


62

support the viability o f autonomous fisheries development models. As a case drawn for Puerto Rico’s economic reality, it is extremely important for the discussion that I will present in this dissertation. As Valdes Pizzini (1985:468-470) has suggested, it would be interesting to examine the government’s role in contexts where local fishing communities can operate with some degree o f autonomy from the official models o f economic development. Although his suggestion is worthy o f consideration, I argue that the role played by national governments in the promotion of fisheries modernization is at stake in most theoretical analyses. The analysis o f government intervention presented above did not exhaust all the possibilities that such a theoretical concern can and do provide but attempted to highlight the leading concerns that have dominated the debate on fisheries modernization during the past two decades. To do otherwise would have involved an extended analysis o f the philosophical and political conditions enabling the formation o f national states and governments (see Abrams 1988). Instead, the purpose o f the chapter has been to envision fisheries modernization programs in Puerto Rico since the late 1940s as a process o f economic development congruent with the experience followed by other Caribbean nations, especially Grenada and Venezuela. The next chapter will examine the role that the Puerto Rican and federal governments have played in the transformation o f Puerto Rico’s so-called “traditional fisheries.” If economic development has indeed become a contested terrain o f cultural representations and imaginaries, we thus should explore the conditions that have prompted both governments to modernize the island’s fisheries, as well as the


63

mechanisms whereby the state has intervened in the affairs o f communities.


the local fishing

64 Endnotes to Chapter 2

1. For an extended discussion o f the problematic development o f maritime anthropology as an academic sub-field, see Breton and Lopez Estrada (1989:42-58). 2. For example, the Director o f Puerto Rico’s Center for Aquaculture Research and Development rendered similarly strong comments and categorizations during the course o f an interview conducted on December 3, 1997. 3. See Andersen and Wadel (1972), Andersen (1979), Spoehr (1980), respectively. 4. Raymond Firth conducted ethnographic fieldwork among Malay fishermen in the late 1930s. He made clear in the Preface to his book that the first draft was written in 1940-1941, before the entry o f the Japanese into Malaya, and that it was delayed by war hostilities. Although the book was first published in 1946, the interest in the systematic study o f fishing predated the anthropological concern with the cultural adaptations o f maritime peoples. 5. It should not surprise anyone that Raymond Firth has been recognized as an important anthropologist, not only for the formation o f maritime anthropology as an academic field, but also for the development o f the broader field o f economic anthropology (see Cook 1974:796). 6. See Carsten (1996) for a similar analysis o f kinship structures and organization among the fishermen o f Langkawi, an island situated about thirty miles o ff the west coast o f Malaysia, just south of the Thai border. 7. See the discussion o f fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico presented in Chapter 1 and the subsequent analysis given in Chapter 3. 8. This information was downloaded from the internet. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, entitled Number o f fishers doubled since 1970, can be found at www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/fishery/highIigh/fisher/c929f.htm.


CH APTER3

Under the banner of development: The discontinuous nature of fisheries development policies in Puerto Rico

Herein lies the importance of developmentalism as a dominant ideology. Insofar as the economic problems o f Puerto Rico were framed in a developmentalism ideology, the key issues were reconstruction, growth and equitable distribution o f income.... By introducing developmentalism as the dominant form o f discourse, the debate shifted away from the political basis o f any new social order and focused on how to make the existing order work.

Emilio Pantojas Garcia, 1990:56

Fisheries modernization in the era of post-development studies Since the late 1970s fisheries modernization has ceased to be a topic o f maritime anthropology’s discourse. One o f the reasons for this is the fact that development has become an ill-fated word, one that is seldom mentioned in current socio-economic and political studies o f small-scale fishing. And nowadays it is harshly criticized as an illusion that has led to “massive underdevelopment and impoverishment, untold

65


66

exploitation and oppression” (Escobar 1995:4). Whereas from the 1950s to the 1970s development was considered to bring about the economic take off o f so-called Third World nations, since the 1980s it has been practically exorcised from the vocabulary o f the social sciences. Although some scholars and practitioners o f development still cling to its promises and illusions as a banner on which to sustain common causes (see, for instance, Gardner and Lewis 1996, Lara 1999), criticism of its failures and deceptions has received ample support in certain academic circles (see Escobar 1991, 1995, Ferguson 1990, Muniz Varela 1995, 1999, Rahnema and Brawtree 1997, Sachs 1992). Wolfgang Sachs (1992:1), one o f the most articulate critics o f development, summarized the disillusion in the following manner: like a towering lighthouse guiding sailors towards the coast, “development” stood as THE idea which oriented emerging nations in their journey through post-war history.... Today, the lighthouse shows cracks and is starting to crumble. The idea o f development stands like a ruin on the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crimes have been the steady companions o f development and they tell a common story: it did not work. The pungent critiques of development in the form that Sachs (1992) and Escobar (1995) have recently carried out define an emergent research area commonly referred to as post-development studies. It involves a reliance on post-modem rhetoric that construes development as a discourse and set o f practices to deal with the fundamental problems, goals, assumptions and results of the economic development models implemented since the late 1940s. In other words, post-development studies consider development as a historically produced discourse on economic progress that has led to hegemonic ways to control and represent non-Westem economies. Initiated in Western Europe and United States, the imaginary o f development became a powerful force to further the promises


67

that the developed nations considered necessary for socio-economic and cultural modernization to take place. “As Western experts and politicians started to see certain conditions in Asia, Africa and Latin America as a problem -mostly what was perceived as poverty and backwardness- a new domain o f thought and experience, namely, development came into being, resulting in a new strategy for dealing with the alleged problems” (Escobar 1995:6). As many other academic discourses inscribed in the logic o f a so-called crisis o f modernity, post-development studies maintain that the promotion o f economic development in the Third World has led to the deterioration of the economic and political conditions o f the very communities and nations that it sought to help. Post-development studies have given much attention to the work carried out by multilateral organizations such as the United Nations in the making o f the Third World as an external object eagerly waiting to receive all the possible economic, technical and scientific assistance. In contrast to the situation o f many so-called Third World nations, the modernization o f Puerto Rico’s economy and culture has heavily depended on the United States government with little, if any, support from multilateral organizations. This fact has important implications for the analysis presented in this dissertation because it describes a process that ran counter to the cases found in many so-called Third World countries. At the end o f World War II, the European colonial powers granted political independence to their former colonies in Africa and Asia. The de-colonization period began in the early 1950s and extended well into the 1980s with different manifestations in Africa, South East Asia and the Caribbean. In Puerto Rico, however, the colonial regime imposed by the United States was disguised under the cloak o f the Commonwealth, or Free Associated State, in 1952. If the end o f World War II led to the


68 dispersion o f colonial power in Africa and Southeast Asia, in Puerto Rico it led to a new arrangement o f the colonial functions and roles o f the Puerto Rican government. In essence, the Puerto Rican government has retained only limited powers to decide over its own economic and political future as the United States Congress maintains the power to disallow any law approved by the Puerto Rican Legislature. Puerto Rico’s status as a non incorporated territory, therefore, means that multilateral programs for economic development do not apply because the island receives federal funding to carry out programs for social assistance and economic development (see Rivera Batiz and Santiago 1996). As I shall discuss in this chapter, the modernization of Puerto Rico’s fisheries has depended heavily on the political and economic relationships between the governments of Puerto Rico and United States. For example, Puerto Rico has profited from the introduction o f various federal government programs for economic, scientific and technological assistance. On the other hand, the Puerto Rican government has designed and implemented many programs that have radically transformed the traditional aspects o f the island’s fisheries. The development programs implemented with support from Puerto Rico’s and United States’ governments have followed the pattern o f downward aggregation defined by Maiolo and Orbach (1982) and helped link the governments with the fishing communities. Fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico has thus linked the three levels o f government intervention -federal, Commonwealth and local or municipal- and helped create a knowledge apparatus to collect data about fish stocks as well as of commercial fishermen who exploit them. Besides collecting these data, the federal and Commonwealth governments have built up the infrastructure in landing centers, provided


69 the fishermen with opportunities to purchase and upgrade fishing equipment and organized fishermen’s associations in most coastal communities. Both the data collection procedures and the extension o f monetary, scientific and technological assistance to the fishermen are parallel processes that the governments have assumed as their responsibility since the early 1940s. Through the creation of various agencies, laws and regulations to develop, administer and manage the fisheries the federal,

Commonwealth

and

municipal

governments

institutionalized

fisheries

modernization as their official policy, an important role that will be defined here as “parallel institutionalism.” Although the federal government conducted several explorations around Puerto Rico before the 1940s, they were limited to reporting on the conditions o f the insular fisheries and thus had little effect on the preparation of development programs. Since the early 1940s, when the federal and Puerto Rican governments worked closely together to create some public agencies and approve official laws and regulations to modernize the island’s fisheries, parallel institutionalism became a prominent feature o f state intervention. Table 3.1 shows the great number of agencies, law s and regulations created until the present to promote fisheries development in Puerto Rico. Most o f them have been placed under the jurisdiction o f Puerto Rico’s Department o f Agriculture and Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources. In the United States, the Department o f Commerce is the leading government agency in the promotion o f fisheries development and management. This chapter is organized in a chronological sequence in order to pinpoint the major transformations in the governments’ role and the process o f fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico. It begins with a description o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries at


70

the time when United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898. From that moment until the early 1930s the role o f the colonial government was to conduct exploratory and survey research with very limited impact on the island’s fisheries. The chapter then describes the role o f the federal and Puerto Rican governments from the early 1940s until the late 1950s, a period characterized by the introduction o f capital and technology transfers into the fishing communities with the goal o f helping meet the high demand for fresh fish in Puerto Rico. Lastly, it discusses the consequences o f governments’ roles in the creation o f new regulations to develop, administer, and manage the fisheries. Throughout the three historical periods the governments changed priorities according to the conditions o f possibility o f the development and modernization programs put in place. The analysis demonstrates that fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico has been marred by discontinuous and uneven implementation o f numerous fisheries development programs with little coordination among the government agencies involved. Nevertheless, it also demonstrates that government intervention has successfully transformed the traditional fisheries into modem commercial enterprises.


71 Table 3.1 Major agencies and fisheries programs funded by the governments of Puerto Rico and United States Agency or Program

Government level

Division of Fisheries and Wildlife

Puerto Rico’s Department Agriculture and Commerce

of

1934

Laboratory for Fisheries Research

United States Interior

Department

of

1941

Agricultural Company


of

1945

Fishermen’s Credit Agency


of

1958

Program of Minimum Facilities in Puerto Rico’s Department Fishing Villages Agriculture and Commerce

of

1963

and United States Commerce

Department

of

1966

Puerto Rico’s Agriculture

Department

of

Early 1970s

Caribbean Fisheries Management United States Council Commerce

Department

of

1976

Corporation for the Development Puerto Rico’s and and Administration of Marine, Natural Lacustrine and Fluvial Resources of Resources Puerto Rico

Department of Environmental

1979

National Sea Grant College and United States Program Act Commerce

Department

of

1979a

Program for Fisheries Promotion, Puerto Rico’s Development and Administration Agriculture

Department

of

1990

Commercial Fisheries Development Act Agency for Community Action

Year of foundation

2 The National Sea Grant College and Program Act was founded in 1966 but its services extended to Puerto Rico only in 1979. Since 1980, the University o f Puerto Rico Sea Grant College Program has been headquartered at the Mayaguez Campus.


72

The fisheries of Puerto Rico at the crossroads of imperial power When the United States took colonial control over Puerto Rico, after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War o f 1898, the island’s fisheries seemed to be in disarray. The early reports o f North American scientists who surveyed the island’s fisheries and aquatic resources portrayed a disconcerting scenario (see Evermann 1902, Wilcox 1902, Wilcox 1904). The difficulty to assess the conditions of Puerto Rico’s fisheries at the turn o f the 20* century stemmed (in part) from lack o f information regarding the number o f fishermen, boats, fishing gear and landings during more than four centuries of Spanish colonialism in Puerto Rico. In a report published in 1902, Barton Warren Evermann, naturalist in charge o f the expedition conducted by the United States Fish Commission from December 1898 to February 1899, stated that “concerning the food-fishes o f the island absolutely nothing was known except by inference, and nothing was on record regarding the existence, character, extent, or methods o f the commercial fisheries” (see Evermann 1902:5). With the sudden change o f imperial governments, the records o f the port captains -the colonial agents in charge o f collecting data about the status o f the Puerto Rican fisheries- were either destroyed or carried o ff at nearly every port on the island. It is also apparent that the disarray o f the island’s fisheries during this period resulted from the colonial authorities’ lack o f a systematic procedure to assess the conditions o f local fisheries. For example, the port captains collected data about the number o f fishermen, fishing gear and fish landings only in a few ports where sugar and coffee cargoes were landed. The majority o f the fishing operations were thus left


73

unaccounted for. At the beginning o f the 19th century, the Spanish Crown decided to investigate the status o f the fisheries in her American colonies and issued a report about the conditions of the Puerto Rican fisheries. One o f the most vexing problems was lack o f government control over the fishermen (Torres 1969, cited in Valdes Pizzini 1987:25). Due to the fact that many fishermen did not have permits to fish commercially, the government lacked the wherewithal to compile an accurate census o f the total number o f fishermen as well as o f the total number o f fish landings. Serious disputes between fishermen with and fishermen without licenses to fish commercially occurred as the latter frequently fished in areas restricted to them by government law. Such disputes intensified especially during the last quarter of Spanish colonial rule as the authorities tightened the restrictions to regulate access to the best fishing areas in the river mouths and along the coasts. Port captains granted fishing licenses only to Spanish subjects who were enrolled in the reserve naval force. Any individual wishing to fish commercially was compelled to buy exclusive rights, which were advertised and sold at auction by the colonial authorities. At some ports across the island, colonial authorities imposed a special tax on all fresh fish landed. Although no accurate data exist on the number o f commercial fishermen, fishing boats and landings during the period o f Spanish colonial rule in Puerto Rico, we may assume that the technology used by the local fishermen was poorly developed and that they were unable to meet the high demand for fresh fish. William Wilcox, the United States Fish Commission’s agent who led the first exploration o f the Puerto Rican fisheries, documented this situation (see Wilcox 1902). At the moment he carried out the survey, fishing for a livelihood was not carried out to a large extent


74 anywhere on the island. The fishermen numbered approximately 800 and employed nearly 350 boats equipped only with sails and oars. Except for some fishermen in the western coast, none owned boats equipped with live wells in which to keep the catches fresh. The fishing boats were constructed by the fishermen themselves and were rather crude. Due to the boats’ poor construction and the limited propulsion capacity o f the sails and oars, fishermen were constrained to fish in river streams and estuaries (Wilcox 1902:29-30). The most important fishing gear was the fish trap, its frame constructed

“o f

mangrove or other wood and the body o f split wild cane, wood or bark, woven in 2-inch, 6-sided meshes” (Wilcox 1902:30). As I indicated in Chapter 1, fish traps have been the preferred fishing method in Puerto Rico until the present. The second most important gear was nets, although their use varied widely. For example, the haul seine, a net ranging from 150 to 300 feet long and from 15 to 20 feet deep, and the gill net, measuring about 600 feet long and 12 feet deep, were not commonly used. The cast net, a smaller net used along the coast for sardines and in the river mouths for mullets, was more frequently used than both the haul seine and gill net. Other fishing gear commonly used during the late 19th century included hoop nets (used mainly in the river mouths) and various types o f lines, which included hand lines, trawl lines and troll lines. Wilcox (1902:32) briefly mentions the use of fish weirs when he commented that they were used: by building a hedge o f canes across the [river] stream, with a gateway for passing boats. The hedge is made with pockets at various places on each side, and the fish, in going up or down stream, enter these pockets and are removed with dip nets. In some streams the hedges have no pockets, but funnels o f bamboo or cane splints are inserted at various places. Fish seeking a passage through the hedge enter these cones and become wedged, few escaping.


75

This short description is striking because this fishing gear was extensively used in Puerto Rico during the last few decades o f the 19th century (see Valdes Pizzini 1987). I assume that it is likely that fish weirs were being used extensively when the United States Fish Commission initially explored the island during 1898-1899. There is evidence suggesting that fish weirs were heavily used until 1952, when the Puerto Rican government finally prohibited them (Valdes Pizzini 1987:14-23). As with other aspects o f Wilcox’s (1902) description o f the island’s fisheries, his brief mention o f fish weirs stems from the fact that he only visited some major ports where fishermen landed their catches and sugar and coffee cargoes were received and counted. The fact that fish weirs were primarily installed along river streams and estuaries explains why he did not describe them more fully. A quick perusal o f historical documents on the utilization o f fish weirs suggests that indigenous groups inhabiting Puerto Rico prior to the Spanish conquest might have invented the technology (see Valdes Pizzini 1987:14-15). The Spanish colonizers appropriated it and with their knowledge and expertise slightly improved it. The Spaniards and criollos used the gear extensively and by the late 19th century it had become one o f the most important fishing technologies in Puerto Rico. As it occurred in the case o f other fishing gear, owners of fish weirs had to get permits from colonial authorities in order to install and operate them. The Puerto Rican government generally granted license to landholders, who in turn prohibited access to the fishing areas along river streams and estuaries where fish weirs were commonly placed. During the 18th and 19th centuries, fish weirs were so heavily used that serious disputes occurred between


76 license holders and those who lacked them. Among other reasons, fish weirs were prohibited in 1952 because o f the great number o f disputes involved in securing access to the fishing areas. A careful study o f fish weirs also reveals the existence of a “conservation ethic” on the part o f the Spanish colonial government, particularly during the late 18th century and the beginning o f the 19th century. The Spanish authorities in Puerto Rico were concerned with the protection o f the marine resources and considered measures to prevent overexploitation. One o f the measures was related to the prohibition o f installing and operating fish weirs during the spawning period o f the most commercially desirable species. However, government regulations were flexible enough so as to allow for their operation when the local fish supply dwindled dramatically, even if the prohibition to catch certain species during their spawning period was still in effect. The colonial authorities gave attention to such cases on an individual basis and engaged in agreements with fish weir operators in order to settle disputes arising from their indiscriminate use. In other words, when the Spanish colonial government considered that there was a scarcity in fresh fish supply, it could allow the operation o f fish weirs in areas or seasons in which they were not commonly used. Fish stock conservation and the economic well being o f the rural populations were thus considered in the goals to increase productivity o f the local fisheries. The change o f colonial governments in 1898 implied the reversal o f the fisheries policies that Spain implemented. For example, immediately upon annexing the island, the United States government abolished the practice whereby the state granted permits and privileges to fish along the rivers and coasts. In essence, the changes meant that fishing


77

was considered free and open to anyone. Unfortunately, Wilcox’s report (1902) o f the first exploration o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries does not contain further data about the changes brought about by United States fisheries policy. As he himself acknowledged, “the change in the government o f Porto Rico [sic] has been so recent that it will be some time before the old methods will become modified to suit the new conditions” (Wilcox 1902:30). Besides providing an overview o f the conditions o f the island’s fisheries, his report also showed evidence o f the important role that fishery trade played in the colonial economy supplying the demand for dried and processed fish. Indeed, considerable attention was given to the importation o f cured fish into the island. In 1897, for example, “about 33,449,422 pounds o f dried, pickled, canned, and other fish, valued at $2,123,931” were imported into Puerto Rico (Wilcox 1902:41). Approximately 90% o f the dried fish were made up of codfish and the remaining o f haddock (7%) and hake (3%). The collection o f data on Puerto Rico’s fisheries and aquatic resources during the first exploration conducted by the United States Fish Commission stands as one o f the most impressive endeavors o f the new colonial administration. The United States government’s capacity to collect and classify data, and to report on the conditions o f the newly conquered territories, legitimated the colonial administrators’ authority over the newly colonized subjects in Puerto Rico. The colonial nature o f the explorations can be clearly seen in the fact that they also involved the collection o f scientific data from other Caribbean regions as well. A corps o f fisheries and aquatic resource specialists supervised the early explorations and collected large samples o f aquatic organisms in order to “study and report, with a view to the publication o f a comprehensive work on the animals o f the fresh and salt waters o f the [Caribbean] region” (see Evermann 1902:Preface).


78

The imperial gaze on Puerto Rico, however, did not finish with the publication o f the results o f the first expedition o f the United States Fish Commission. In 1902, the same colonial agent, William Wilcox, conducted yet another exploration o f the island’s fisheries “with special reference to the present conditions, the amount o f capital invested, apparatus used, amount and value o f products, and number o f fishermen; also the amount and value o f fishery products imported during the past four years” (Wilcox 1904:369). In contrast to the first report, in this occasion Wilcox (1904) visited more coastal towns and had the opportunity to present a fuller description o f the island’s fisheries. One of the most remarkable results of the 1904 report was that no significant changes existed in terms o f the fishing technologies that Puerto Rican fishermen employed. For example, his sole description o f the fishing vessels stated that they were “small open sail or row boats, and these are only used when the weather conditions are favorable” (Wilcox 1904:374). Similarly, there is no description about the number o f fishermen engaged in the industry, although Wilcox (1904) calls attention to the various labor options available to them. From his narrative, one can infer that sweeping changes had transformed labor relations and opportunities in some major coastal zones. The following comment is worth quoting: during the past few years a steady demand for labor on shore at increased wages has induced the most enterprising o f the fishermen to give more time to shore work at the expense o f the fisheries (Wilcox 1904:374). These changes clearly point to the emergence o f acute socio-economic transformations in Puerto Rico after a few years o f United States colonial administration. Although Wilcox (1904) does not mention the reasons that may help explain the “steady demand for labor on shore,” it is likely that those changes were related to Puerto Rico’s increasing political and commercial dependence on United States, characterized by


79

increased cultivation o f sugarcane in the coastal valleys (see Dietz 1986:79-134). However, Wilcox (1904) suggests that the improvement noticed in the wages received by the Puerto Rican workers may have contributed to the rapid decrease in the importation of dried and canned fish during the four years since United States took over colonial control: from 17,867,619 pounds in 1899 to 16,757,923 pounds in 1902. According to him, it was also related to the existence of better economic opportunities that allowed the rural coastal workers to have more variety o f food products to choose from. Finally, Wilcox (1904) suggests that the hurricane o f August 8, 1899 may have provoked great destruction o f property and loss o f life, a natural catastrophe that decreased the opportunities to find fresh fish in the Puerto Rican markets. Whatever the reasons, it seems clear that the reduction of dried and canned fish importation in Puerto Rico drastically altered the diet composition o f fishermen and other rural laborers.

Puerto Rico’s fisheries between the 1930s and 194S: reconstruction or development? There exists a gap in the literature about the Puerto Rican fisheries until the beginnings o f the 1930s, when the United States Department o f Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, conducted another survey with the object o f discovering “how may the fisheries o f Puerto Rico be developed and its methods improved” (Jarvis 1932:39). Like the 1899 and 1902 explorations (see Wilcox 1902, 1904), the fisheries survey carried out by Norman Jarvis in 1931 was inscribed in the colonial assumption that naming, classifying and reporting about the practices o f the Puerto Rican fishermen was necessary before designing and implementing sound development plans. Although Jarvis’ report


80

(1932) presented a rich amount o f data on fishing practices and fish trade in Puerto Rico, it was still a cursory attempt to help draw comparisons with the situation prevailing during the late 19th' and early 20th centimes. Although no documentation about the conditions of the island’s fisheries before the 1930s exists, it is evident that United States was greatly concerned with their underdevelopment, as the following quote attests: an economic and marketing survey o f the fisheries o f Puerto Rico was first suggested by Gov. Theodore Roosevelt in May, 1931. Believing that the fishery resources o f the island were largely undeveloped, that methods o f marketing now used were crude and inefficient, and that a local fish-curing industry should be established, if possible, to supplant in part the large amounts o f dry salt fish now imported, Gov. Roosevelt requested the Bureau o f Fisheries to make a survey o f the fisheries o f Puerto Rico, and to suggest procedures leading to their fuller development (Jarvis 1932:2). From July 15 to November 19, 1931, Norman Jarvis (1932) visited the thirty four fishing localities reported in Puerto Rico and interviewed 80% o f the fishermen owning boats and gear, as well as talking to many people interested in the island’s fisheries. Jarvis’ report (1932) documented the fishing methods and gear used by the local fishermen, the natural and ecological conditions that limited the development o f a fishing industry, and the ways that fishermen marketed their catches. Indeed, among the most important findings o f his survey were the evaluation o f fisheries’ productivity and the options available to better market fresh fish so as to reduce dependence on dried and cured fish importation. According to Jarvis (1932:19-24), fish markets in Puerto Rico were poorly supplied. The three main forms o f fish distribution were to sell the catches to the central fish markets at San Juan, Ponce and Mayagiiez (the three biggest cities on the island), fish peddling on the streets o f the major coastal towns, and fish peddling in the countryside. The only difference between the two forms o f fish peddling was that those


81 peddling in the coastal towns did so using “boxes mounted on three wheels and trundled along by hand like a wheelbarrow” (Jarvis 1932:20) while the country peddlers did so with horse-drawn carts or carrying “their supplies in boxes fixed on either side o f a packsaddle” (Jarvis 1932:22-23). Fish handling and distribution at this time was unhealthy and unattractive. Even at the fish markets in San Juan, Ponce and Mayagiiez, where many customers and fish peddlers came to purchase fresh fish, the catches were kept unclean and the fish stalls were in need o f repair. The catches got spoiled easily because they were kept with no ice. As Jarvis (1932) described the conditions in the San Juan market, fish display was not appetizing. He went on to say that “fish are displayed on open-tiled counters or in shallow-tiled basins.... No ice is used, and [the] fish are not washed well before being displayed for sale” (Jarvis 1932:20). With little variations, the same description applied to the fish markets in Ponce and Mayagiiez. Jarvis (1932) recommended (among other things) the use o f ice and refrigeration facilities to keep the catches fresh and the promotion o f “experimental studies in fish curing” with the intention o f preserving the catches dry-salted and cured. It was hoped that the development of preservation methods would help to save much fish from being wasted as well as to reduce fish importation in the domestic markets. An analysis o f the twelve recommendations that Jarvis (1932) made to improve fish marketing and fishing practices is vital to understand the role of the Puerto Rican and United States governments. Believing that “there has been little if any development o f the fishing industry o f Puerto Rico during the past 30 years” and that “local methods are at least 100 years behind the times,” Jarvis (1932:38-41) recommended that the following


82

measures be taken 1) improve the construction o f fishing boats and fishing gear, 2) promote better fish handling and marketing by using ice to prevent the catches from spoiling; 3) improve fish display in the local markets; 4) organize an adequate fish buying and marketing system; and 5) utilize a cash surplus to promote a fish curing industry. Jarvis concluded that Puerto Rico’s insular platform held limited potential to sustain prolonged and intensive fish production. This finding was also important for future preparation o f fisheries development programs in Puerto Rico. With the collaboration of the federal government, the Puerto Rican government started to set up a knowledge apparatus that involved the creation o f several public agencies and the approval o f various laws to regulate fishing practices. These early efforts signaled the beginnings o f the governments’ role in knowing, naming and regulating the insular coastal and marine resources held in common. They also signaled the beginnings o f “parallel institutionalism” in the Puerto Rican fisheries, a process that required direct and committed state intervention in searching for feasible economic development models. In 1934, the Puerto Rican government created the Division o f Fisheries and Wildlife, which was placed under the jurisdiction o f the Department o f Agriculture and Commerce. It was responsible for the introduction o f a variety o f (freshwater) fish species into the island’s rivers and lakes and the construction and management o f a fish hatchery in the highland town o f Maricao. Nevertheless, this fledgling attempt had a minor impact on fisheries development. Two years later, the Puerto Rican Legislature approved Law 83, the Fisheries Law, which passed legislation to “protect and promote the raise o f fish stocks, to regulate the fisheries so as to increase their productivity and to develop the resources in the waters surrounding Puerto Rico.” 1 The Fisheries Law helped lay the


83

ground for state intervention in commercial fisheries, but its scope was limited because it ignored the fishermen’s predatory effects on fish stocks. The limited impact o f the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and the Fisheries Law in the promotion o f fisheries development can be attributed, in part, to the economic conditions prevailing in Puerto Rico and United States during the 1930s. As a result o f the crisis of the world capitalist economy, Puerto Rico and United States’ economies were in shambles and fisheries development was not a government priority. In light o f the critical economic situation, the state channeled all financial and technical assistance to alleviate the miserable conditions o f the destitute rural populations. In Puerto Rico, the 1930s were characterized by acute poverty and illiteracy rates, the malnutrition o f the majority of rural laborers, and the inability of the Puerto Rican government to eradicate or at least control such social ailments (see Dietz 1986:135-158, Wells 1969:114-131). The United States government aimed at halting the misery that plagued the island and in 1933 created the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA) and, in 1935, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Agency (PRRA) (see Dietz 1986:154-158). Their creation resulted from the extension to the Puerto Rican context o f New Deal policies implemented since the mid-1930s in United States in order to fight rural poverty and deprivation. When the federal government extended the juridical mechanisms to rehabilitate and reconstruct Puerto Rico’s economy, peasants and rural laborers comprised the bulk o f the working population. The peasantry included the residents in coastal settlements who fished when the sugarcane cultivation and harvesting seasons came to an end. Wilcox (1904:373-374) briefly documented this pattern o f multiple labor activities among rural


84 coastal workers and it has been recently studied in various Caribbean countries in relation to broader issues pertaining to “the culture o f the fishermen” (Valdes Pizzini 1990a, see also Giusti Cordero 1994). The relevance o f fishing activities for the rural coastal households in Puerto Rico and other areas of the Caribbean seemed to have increased when the sugar economy approached its seasonal lag. As one labor form available to them, small-scale fishing helped supplement household incomes and dietary needs (see Price 1966, Valdes Pizzini 1987). It is not surprising that since the 1930s Puerto Rico’s fisheries were placed under the jurisdiction o f the Department of Agriculture and Commerce because it was believed that small-scale fishermen shared the same economic hardships as other land-based peasants. Although they were few in numbers (1,403 at the time o f Jarvis’ survey o f 1931), government agents represented them as members o f the poorer segments of Puerto Rican society2 (see Velez, Diaz Pacheco and Vazquez Calcerrada 1945). I argue that state intervention in the fishing industry during this decade lacked a clear sense of direction because both the federal and Puerto Rican governments were mainly concerned with the promotion o f an agrarian reform in order (among many other things) to alleviate the exorbitant poverty rates that afflicted the rural populations. In essence, fisheries development during the 1930s could not have been a priority due to lack o f capital and the infrastructure to allocate and distribute effectively the emergency relief extended to the island. This contention, however, should not lead us to make hasty comments about a supposed lack o f development policies at the time, as Pantojas Garcia (1990) has recently argued. According to Pantojas Garcia (1990:35), in Puerto Rico a development discourse did not exist during the 1930s because the state sought to


85

eradicate the high rates o f rural poverty and foster an agrarian reform. Instead, state intervention can be better defined as a sort o f economic reconstruction characterized by the allocation and distribution o f emergency relief to all social groups, a role that he considers is more akin to social justice than to economic development. Pantojas Garcia (1990) confounds the complex role that the capitalist state assumed since the 1930s in order to confront the economic crisis created by the Great Depression. I agree with Dietz’s (1986:143) argument that the majority o f the economic development programs implemented during the 1930s “did forge and legitimize a larger role for government activism within the econom y.... [one] oriented primarily toward creating sufficient aggregate demand, or total spending, to keep private production profitable and to assume sufficient capital accumulation to employ the labor force.” Pantojas Garcia (1990) also seems to forget that development discourses are as ancient as human life itself and they can be (and in fact have been) modified according to historical contingencies and constraints (see, for example, Escobar [1991] and Gardner and Lewis [1996:3-8]). One such modification came about after the end o f World W ar II, a decisive turning point in the world capitalist economy that signaled the beginnings o f a new regime o f capital accumulation and cultural representation (see Amin 1994, Berman 1982, Brunner 1992). In fact, beginning in the late 1940 “development has achieved the status of a certainty in the social imaginary” (Escobar 1995:5) perhaps nowhere more true than in Puerto Rico (see, for instance, Diaz Quinones 1993). Right after the end o f World War II the Puerto Rican government implemented one o f the most comprehensive economic development programs in the world based on industrialization and the radical modification o f the state’s traditional roles. Initially conceived as the leading actor in the


86 incipient industrialization program,3 the Puerto Rican government became the promoter o f private capital investment with the goal o f furthering the island’s industrial development. Pantojas Garcia (1990:101-142) has suggested that this new role characterized the second phase o f industrial development based on a “capitalimportation/export-processing strategy.” According to him, it relied on the promotion o f United States capital investment on the island’s economy, the provision o f tax exemption on the profits made by United States industries located in Puerto Rico, and the elimination o f every obstacle to private capital accumulation and investment (see also Baver 1993:47-69, Dietz 1986:182-310, Maldonado 1997:155-159). As Baver (1993) has correctly argued, the transformation o f the capitalist state’s role as promoter o f capital investment and accumulation have led to an increasing dependence o f Puerto Rico on United States economic and political systems. Since 1941 the federal and Commonwealth governments have assumed fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico as their sole responsibility by furnishing the Department o f Agriculture and Commerce with the economic resources to promote the development o f a native fishing industry (Inigo and Juhl 1968:16, McCollough 1980:19, Suarez Caabro 1979:95). With the approval in May 13, 1941 o f Law 157, the Puerto Rican government “provided the annual sum o f 525,000 to carry out the biological and physical surveys o f the surrounding waters o f Puerto Rico; to patronize fishing cooperatives; and establish refrigeration facilities” (Vergne Roig n.d.:27). This meager amount was adequate only to carry out a few o f the recommendations o f the fisheries development program approved for the 1940s which, with slight variations, were similar to those made by Norman Jarvis in 1932.4 Among the goals accomplished during the early 1940s was the construction of


87

two regional fishing centers, one in Cabo Rojo (founded in 1943) and another in Fajardo (founded in 1944), to distribute fishing gear at affordable prices and to purchase and freeze the catches landed by the Puerto Rican fishermen. Due to the fact that the Puerto Rican government was concerned with the increase o f fish productivity, these centers became the models for the introduction o f new fishing technologies. Also since 1941, the federal and Puerto Rican governments began to work more closely in order to create various public agencies to manage the island’s fisheries. With the help o f the United States Department o f Interior, the Puerto Rican government created in 1941 the Laboratory for Fisheries Research, which began “to consider the possibility o f freezing, canning and salting fish in a semi-commercial scale and initiated research to improve fish handling and marketing techniques” (see Velez, Diaz Pacheco and Vazquez Calcerrada 1945:5). The construction o f the laboratory ushered in a new approach to fisheries development consistent with the idea o f socio-economic progress and modernization. From 1941 to 1945, it led the efforts carried out by government agents and fishery experts to increase fish landings. Finally, it also helped to conduct biological and oceanographic explorations in the coasts around the island in order to assess the potential to develop an industrial fishing fleet (Suarez Caabro 1979:95). Previous efforts to develop such an industry had been abandoned since Jarvis’ (1932) report showed evidence of limited fisheries development potential in some areas along the east and west coasts o f the island. Although during the 1970s the federal and Commonwealth governments made a final attempt to develop an industrial fishing fleet in Puerto Rico (see O’Brien 1972), they directed efforts shortly afterwards into a comprehensive smallscale fisheries development program.


88 The Puerto Rican Agricultural Company (PRACO), an agency founded on April 26, 1945, also helped with biological and oceanographic explorations conducted during the 1940s. It acquired a tuna clipper that made several trips to the Newfoundland Grand Banks in order to “determine the feasibility o f catching, freezing and packing fish there for shipment to Puerto Rico.”5 However, this project was soon abandoned because o f the high costs involved in such long trips. Once the explorations in Newfoundland were discontinued the tuna clipper was used to fish the waters around Puerto Rico and purchase fish at the Cuban seaport o f Nuevitas. The Agricultural Company, considered by many government officials to be the precursor o f supermarket chains in Puerto Rico, also had a significant impact on the creation o f domestic fish markets. For example, in 1946 it “sold approximately $30,000 worth o f fish produced by the Fajardo and [Cabo Rojo] fishing centers, o f which nearly 70% was sold to Plaza PRACO and the rest to private merchants.”6 The establishment o f the Agricultural Company created high expectations for the development o f a national fishing industry but, after a few years, it was dismantled. As mentioned above, a lack o f financial support to sustain the company’s operations greatly reduced the number o f explorations and projects that it was able to carry out. The Agricultural Company only continued operating the Fajardo fishing center and buying fish from fishermen in eastern Puerto Rico. Although the Agricultural Company was active for only a short period, it played an important role in the consolidation o f the early fisheries development efforts. Governor Luis Munoz Marin’s Annual Report for the fiscal year 1949-1950, described it in the following manner:


89

since its organization, the [Agricultural] Company has given a great deal o f attention to the development o f the fishing industry in Puerto Rico. It acquired a modem fishing vessel, “Reina del Caribe,” capable o f carrying out fishing operations in waters far from Puerto Rico and with storage capacity for 40 tons of frozen fish. The company also owns three other smaller fishing vessels for operations near the coast o f Puerto Rico. During the year, the “Reina del Caribe” made several exploratory trips around the Mona Island, the northern coast o f Santo Domingo, and the lower Bahamas. It also made one trip to the northern coast o f Cuba where it was able to purchase large quantities o f fish for consumption in Puerto Rico. It appears that fishing operations could be carried out successfully at a short distance north o f Nuevitas, Cuba. It has been pretty well determined that large-scale commercial fishing in the waters o f Puerto Rico is impractical. There are, however, opportunities for small-scale fishing activities off the western, southwestern and eastern coasts. In order to stimulate small-scale fishing, the company maintained a center in Fajardo to provide the fishermen with equipment and to purchase their catch. This fish, as well as that brought in by the “Reina del Mar” [sic], was distributed and sold through PRACO stores. By the end o f World War II, the changes in Puerto Rico’s fisheries resulted mainly from the introduction o f modem fishing technologies and the creation o f local fish markets. Fisheries development programs embodied the best intentions o f various short term projects to improve the poorly supplied fish markets that prevailed before and during World War II. The war hostilities indeed accelerated the implementation o f a wellorganized fisheries development program, but it should not be considered the main factor prompting state intervention in the fishing communities, as Suarez Caabro (1979) has suggested. The surveys conducted in 1931 (see Jarvis 1932) and 1942-1943 (see Velez, Diaz Pacheco and Vazquez Calcerrada) identified poor fish handling and distribution as the main obstacles. Similarly, from the early 1930s the federal and Commonwealth governments had knowledge o f the limited development potential o f the waters surrounding Puerto Rico, a fact confirmed during the 1940s by the explorations that the Laboratory for Fisheries Research and the Agricultural Company carried out. As will be


90 explained in the next section, since the late 1950s the federal and Puerto Rican governments have invested heavily in the construction o f the basic infrastructure in the fishing communities with the goal o f improving the fishermen’s economic well being. Continued state intervention in the affairs of local fishing communities brought the process of “parallel institutionalism” full circle.

Post-war fisheries institutionalism”

development

and

the

consolidation

of

“parallel

The dismantling o f the Agricultural Company at the end o f World War II represented a serious setback to fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico. From the late 1940s, fisheries development programs followed an erratic and discontinuous path, with the creation o f various public agencies, alteration o f some o f the programs already implemented, and elimination o f others that were considered burdensome or flawed. Some of the programs that the Agricultural Company carried out were transferred to the Department o f Agriculture and Commerce, which has always been the leading government agency for the fisheries development in Puerto Rico. Immediately after the Agricultural Company was dismantled, the Laboratory for Fisheries Research ceased to operate and its facilities transferred to the Mayaguez Campus o f the University o f Puerto Rico. By this time the federal and Puerto Rican governments had already abandoned the idea o f promoting large-scale fisheries development. During the late 1940s and until the late 1950s the conditions o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries did not improve dramatically, as the federal and Puerto Rican governments were unable to accomplish most o f the goals set in the development programs created in the early 1940s.


91 Among the causes that help explain the low level o f modernization o f the island’s fisheries during these two decades are inconsistent funding o f most development programs and lack o f a coherent policy (see Comite de Pesca y Acuicultura 1989:12-13, Kimmel 1992). Although Suarez Caabro (1979:95) has suggested that the Puerto Rican government embarked on the promotion o f fisheries development programs because the private sector would never invest in this industry, the state fell short of accomplishing its goals. As an example o f inconsistent funding, let us examine the following situation. In April 12, 1951, the Puerto Rican Legislature approved Law 92 (which created a Fund for Fisheries Rehabilitation) and allocated $20,000 to the Department o f Agriculture and Commerce to invest in the rehabilitation o f the national fishing industry. However, in October 29, 1956, Law 92 was derogated and uie fund for fisheries rehabilitation transferred to the Rotary Fund o f the Program for Food Production and Distribution.7 Once the Department o f Agriculture and Commerce purchased and distributed the necessary fishing gear and equipment, it retained only $10,000 (of the $20,000 originally allocated to Law 92), because the new law o f 1956 did not approve additional funding for the fisheries rehabilitation program!8 I contend that since the 1950s the majority o f the development programs have aimed at enhancing the aesthetic and visual appearance o f fishing communities in order to present consumers a more appetizing product, in a similar way to what Jarvis (1932) recommended in the early 1930s. This role was reiterated by the Director o f the Program for Fisheries Promotion, Development and Administration during an interview conducted in 1997 when he argued that currently one o f the most critical aspects facing the development o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries is the antihygienic form in which fish is handled,


92 displayed and marketed. He commented, “we have to acknowledge that consumer eat first with the eyesight, by taking a look [at the catches], and then they buy it. And we will not be able to promote fresh fish marketing and consumption if it is displayed in an antihygienic location.”9 The Puerto Rican government increased capital expenditures in order to transform antihygienic fish handling and marketing only when it acknowledged the limited development potential o f the insular platform and the difficulty o f promoting an industrial fishing fleet. When the state abandoned the idea to develop an industrial fishing fleet it started to help the fishermen sustain small-scale fishing production in the inshore areas. During the 1950s and through the 1970s, the main goals were the construction o f the basic fishing infrastructure in all fishing communities and purveying financial assistance to help fishermen acquire modem fishing. The basic infrastructure consisted o f the construction o f lockers in all landing centers where fishermen could keep their boats and fishing gear in a safe place and close to the sea; refrigeration facilities to keep the catches frozen; and the construction and maintenance o f wharves to land the catches. Fisheries development plans were anchored in the work carried out by the following three agencies and programs: the Fishermen’s Credit Agency (founded in 1958), the Program o f Minimum Facilities in Fishing Villages (created in 1963), and the Fisheries Division o f the Agency for Community Action (founded in the early 1970s), all o f them under the jurisdiction o f the Department Agriculture. Their work led the fisheries modernization efforts by facilitating fishermen’s access to low-interest loans to purchase and improve fishing gear and equipment, organizing fishermen’s associations and constructing wharves and working areas where fishermen could also meet as an organization.


93 From 1958 to 1964, the Fishermen’s Credit Agency distributed more than 900 loans worth over 5500,000, enough money to provide motors to approximately 65% o f the fishing boats registered in the island. In the fiscal year 1975-1976, it approved some 249 loans with a total value of more than $402,568. On the other hand, the Agency for Community Action provided several fishing centers with larger vessels (of approximately 51

feet)

equipped

with

refrigeration

systems,

radio

and

radar

facilities,

telecommunications and navigation technologies. The vessels were given only to the fishermen’s associations founded from the early 1970s. In the fiscal year 1974-1975, the Agency for Community Action invested $3,840,614 in seventeen fisheries development projects throughout the island. O f this total, the Puerto Rican government invested $1,078,011 and United States government the remainder. One o f the projects was located in Playa de Guayanilla and another in Encamacion, two fishing communities that will be described in the next chapter. In both communities, the agency built the basic infrastructure needed to undertake small-scale fishing operations, distributed low-interest loans to fishermen in order to purchase and improve fishing equipment, created fishermen’s associations and trained them in the use o f modem fishing technologies. By the late 1970s, the three programs helped construct the basic infrastructure in thirty-two fishing communities across the island and disbursed approximately $2,000,000 to the small-scale fishermen. Among the major goals o f the Agency for Community Action was the construction o f “a sense of community”10 among small-scale fishermen. This was indeed a positive result since many fishery agents previously believed that fishermen are individualistic and incapable of experimenting with new fishing technologies. As has


94 been acknowledged recently, the “sense o f community” created among them was accomplished through the establishment o f fishermen’s associations, the states’ mechanism to channel economic and institutional support to the local communities. The fishermen’s associations functioned as political bodies that linked fishing communities with government agencies and fishery experts. More significantly, they helped bring together a labor force that had traditionally worked independently and was difficult to approach as a unified social group. Therefore, through this “sense o f community” fishing communities were constructed as spatial and political categories falling under the sphere o f influence of the state’s modernizing discourse. The fishermen’s associations, however, produced mixed results since most operations were plagued by funds mismanagement and political strife among their members (see Gutierrez Sanchez, McCay and Valdes Pizzini 1987). It is not surprising then to read about some government agents’ skepticism o f fishermen’s associations as effective mechanisms to advance the interests o f smallscale fishermen. The following comment is revealing o f such skepticism and distrust: it seems to us that the fishermen’s associations will not yield positive results in the long run. We doubt that they can operate successfully and cover their expenses if we cut the economic assistance that we currently provide. We coincide with the opinions o f fishery experts who consider that the way in which the fishermen’s associations function will not lead to productive operations. Only those associations that have among their members and leaders very hard-working people will survive and integrate fully into their communities (Suarez Caabro 1979:117). Fisheries modernization, however, continued to be an important component o f the rhetoric o f economic development planners and government agents. More significantly, it was seen as the door giving access to an inevitable future of economic progress and success. Not only was the increase o f capital expenditures (although still in insufficient


95

amounts) a necessary prerequisite to cross the threshold into modernity but fisheries modernization also involved the intensification of state intervention in every aspect o f the fishing industry, that is to say, from building the basic infrastructure, to collecting data on the number o f fishermen and commercial landings, to constructing the policies for fisheries administration and management. From the late 1960s, fisheries modernization has led to the consolidation o f parallel institutionalism as the Puerto Rican and United States governments worked in unison in order to incorporate coastal and marine resources administration and management into the development programs. This goal was addressed since 1966 with the approval o f Law 88-309, known as the Commercial Fisheries and Development Act, the approval that same year of the National Sea Grant College and Program Act and the creation in 1976 o f the Caribbean Fisheries Management Council. This federal legislation has been advanced with the support o f United States National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency o f the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which in turn is a part o f the United States Department of Commerce. 11 The Commercial Fisheries and Development Act provided a useful beginning for creating a comprehensive fisheries policy framework in Puerto Rico. It has allowed for the creation of a Program for the Collection o f Fishery Statistics (which collected fishery statistical data beginning in 1967), and the construction o f a Fisheries Research Laboratory, which initiated operations in 1971. The Program for the Collection o f Fishery Statistics provides a systematic way to collect fishery data based on the reports that small-scale fishermen furnish about their daily fishing trips. This kind o f information is collected from all licensed commercial fishermen in every fishing community across the


96 island. On the other hand, the Fisheries Research Laboratory is responsible for conducting scientific research about the biological aspects o f fish stocks and ways to improve fish preservation, aquaculture development, and assessing the socio-economic conditions o f small-scale commercial fishermen. The data gathered through the Fishery Statistical Program and the research conducted by the Fisheries Research Laboratory provide the necessary information with which to assess the conditions o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries before proper fisheries development, administration and management programs can be created and implemented. As an unincorporated territory o f the United States, Puerto Rico is covered by federal legislation that creates and implements national fisheries policy. As such, Puerto Rico is a member o f the Caribbean Fishery Management Council, one o f eight regional councils in which the United States National Marine Fisheries Service divides all coastal and fishing regions o f the nation. Created in 1976 by the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act to advise the National Marine Fisheries Service on management issues in the Caribbean region, its headquarters are located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is responsible for the investigation o f the status o f Caribbean fishery resources, the regulation o f fishing operations by foreign fleets within the Exclusive Economic Zone at 200 miles from the insular coasts, and coordination o f the government policy to administer and manage the Caribbean fisheries. The Caribbean Fishery Management Council is the smallest unit o f the system and includes thirty-eight Caribbean nations that share fishery resources in different stages, that is to say, from larva to adult. Among its objectives is the preparation o f fishery management plans


in accordance to

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recommendations made by council members that takes into account potential biological and socio-economic consequences on the fish stocks concerned. Fisheries policy in Puerto Rico has been criticized for lack o f coordination between all agencies involved in the promotion o f fisheries development, administration and management (see Comite de Pesca y Acuicultura 1989, Kimmel 1992). One o f the most promising attempts to coordinate all functions occurred in 1979 when the Puerto Rican Legislature approved Law 82 to create CODREMAR, or the Corporation for the Development and Administration of Marine, Lacustrine and Fluvial Resources in Puerto Rico. It was placed under the jurisdiction o f Puerto Rico’s Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources and enabled by law to “establish penalties and assign funds”12 for the development, administration and management of the island’s fisheries. CODREMAR was responsible for the coordination o f all fisheries policy functions in a single government agency. However, as occurred in the case of previous programs, mismanagement and political disputes marred it. Although it remained in operation for about a decade, it has been said that it embodied the creation o f a comprehensive fisheries policy framework that provided legal and scientific procedures to develop, administer and manage the island’s fisheries in accordance to the limited development potential o f the insular platform. Since CODREMAR has been one o f the most comprehensive programs to deal with the conditions o f the small-scale fisheries in Puerto Rico, it is worth discussing it at some length. CODREMAR retained the projects initiated by the Agency for Community Action which had not completed when it was dismantled in the late 1970s, like the construction o f the basic infrastructure in every fishing community, the provision o f


98 credit and loans to commercial fishermen to acquire better equipment and technologies, and the creation o f fishermen’s associations. In addition, it was also responsible for the collection o f data on commercial fisheries and fishermen’s education in the utilization o f modem fishing technologies, the two main programs that the Fisheries Research Laboratory had undertaken since the late 1960s. O f the great number o f responsibilities and functions that it was supposed to undertake, CODREMAR undertook only a small number o f short-term projects. Like many agencies that the Puerto Rican government founded, its programs were abruptly discontinued and transferred to existing agencies or given over to the newly created ones. Besides acute lack o f funding to carry out many o f its projects, two reasons contributed to its elimination. First, as some fishery agents interviewed in 1997 argued, some politicians as well as fishery agents still believed that abundant fishery resources surrounded Puerto Rico when CODREMAR was founded in 1979. Second, fishery agents and politicians who drafted the law to create it confounded the ideals o f small-scale fisheries development and conservation in the same program. Although fisheries development and conservation programs can at certain moments share similar goals, they are usually based on different assumptions that entail opposing and even contradictory procedures, alternatives and results. As many cases of coastal resources development have demonstrated, coastal and marine resources conservation has always been subordinated to the logic of economic development and the pursuit o f material progress (see Short 1991, Smith 1996). While CODREMAR continued to introduce the institutions o f modernity in Puerto Rico’s fisheries for about a decade, it only accomplished some short-lived goals.


99 The majority o f the fishery agents that I interviewed in 1997 agreed that CODREMAR succeeded in becoming a responsible public agency concerned with the socio-economic well being o f small-scale fishermen. Indeed, they believe that it did a superb job o f establishing good relationships with fishermen in its efforts to help construct basic infrastructure in fishing communities, collect data on commercial fish landings, and evaluate socio-economic and political resources available in local fishing communities. Similarly, most commercial fishermen interviewed in 1997 positively rated CODREMAR’s work and also considered that it entailed an appropriate model o f fisheries promotion and management as well as o f state intervention in their communities. Needless to say, one o f the reasons explaining CODREMAR’s good reputation was the fact that it took advantage o f an institutional and scientific infrastructure already in existence as well as knowledge o f fisheries development, management and administration produced in approximately three decades o f explorations, surveys and research conducted in the island. With the elimination o f CODREMAR in 1989, the Puerto Rican government separated once again fisheries development and conservation goals into two distinct public agencies, each one with its own programs and agendas. For example, on August 23, 1990, the Puerto Rican government created the Program for Fisheries Promotion, Development and Administration in order to administer the reduced financial and institutional infrastructure still in place to promote fisheries development. It was created after approval o f Law 61, which transferred all programs that CODREMAR created, especially the provision o f economic and technical support, to the newly created agency. The Program for Fisheries Promotion, Development and Administration was placed


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under the jurisdiction o f the Department o f Agriculture and made responsible for providing economic and technical assistance to small-scale fishermen. On the other hand, the fisheries management program that CODREMAR created was transferred to the Fisheries Research Laboratory, which is still responsible for collecting statistical data on commercial fish landings and conducting research about the biological status o f fish stocks in Puerto Rico. Among other reasons, the reduction o f the Fisheries Research Laboratory’s tasks has resulted from rapid decline in the total amount of commercial landings reported in Puerto Rico since the early 1980s (see Figure 1.3). The laboratory was placed under the jurisdiction o f the Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources because, as the Acting Director commented during the course of an interview, “[fishery agents] believed that its job relates more to fisheries conservation than development— Right now there is nothing to develop. What we need to do is to preserve fish stocks for the benefit o f future generations.”13 Although the laboratory is not directly involved in the development o f the island’s fisheries in the strict sense o f the term, the data that it collects is necessary for the creation and implementation o f appropriate public fisheries policy. More significantly, as the comment from the laboratory’s director suggests, fisheries policy in Puerto Rico since the mid-1980s has changed its emphasis from marine resources’ development to conservation.


101 Conclusions and recapitulation Future fisheries policy should avoid the mistakes o f previous development and management in Puerto Rico. This will require better coordination between the existing public institutions that regulate fishing as well as consistent funding o f the programs that the federal government maintains in the island. Although close cooperation between the federal and Puerto Rican governments has yielded many positive outcomes, it has also created many inconveniences. For example, the Fishery Statistics Program operates under contract with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Every contract has to be approved annually and on occasion the Fisheries Research Laboratory has had to close due to lack o f funding. Since 1988, federal funds have been reduced while funds from the Puerto Rican government have had to be added. Since it depends largely on federal money, the laboratory sends a report to the National Marine Fisheries Service (headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida) before it can be o f any help to the programs o f the Fisheries Research Laboratory in Puerto Rico. Likewise, other federally funded programs do not always receive the same amount o f money and their budget needs to be modified yearly, which makes it difficult to collect data directly from small-scale fishermen (see Comite de Pesca y Acuicultura 1989:12-13). Appropriate fisheries policy also has to include insights from new theoretical developments to study fisheries management in order to promote the incorporation o f all fisheries and marine resource users into development and conservation programs. This trend, commonly referred to as co-management, has proved to be a fertile ground for increased collaboration between local communities and government agencies in the construction o f sustainable development models (see Dyer and McGoodwin 1994,


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Pinkerton 1989). In Puerto Rico, the implementation o f co-management programs has produced many conflicts between fishermen and other marine resource users. A good example o f an attempt to introduce co-management programs in Puerto Rico was the proposal to create a marine fishery reserve in La Parguera, a coastal area heavily used by commercial and recreational fishermen as well as tourists (see Valdes Pizzini 1990b). Indeed, various fisheries agents that I questioned during the course o f the interviews conducted in 1997 regarding the state’s role in the promotion o f fisheries co-management acknowledged that it is necessary but also agreed that Puerto Rico’s government lacks a clear policy to promote fisheries co-management. Its promotion will lead to a different role for federal and Commonwealth governments’ intervention in local fishing communities, one that will not be considered in this dissertation. Fisheries co-management is a fascinating topic that merits careful attention in future studies about the conditions o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries. The goal o f this chapter has been to demonstrate that fisheries development in Puerto Rico has been a discontinuous process characterized by erratic implementation o f various short-lived programs. It has resulted in continuous replacement o f fisheries development programs and the creation o f new agencies that have little, if any, coordination among themselves. The major factors that may help explain the discontinuous nature o f fisheries development in Puerto Rico are inconsistent funding (both by the federal and Puerto Rican governments) o f development and management programs and the fact that smallscale fisheries development has never been a governmental priority. Initially involved in small-scale fisheries promotion, the Puerto Rican government then changed its emphasis toward the promotion o f offshore explorations and then back again to promote small-


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scale fisheries. Since the late 1940s, the government has prioritized industrialization o f the island’s economy and, since the mid-1980s, conservation o f fish stocks and other marine resources. During the early 1950s, the Puerto Rican government sought to eradicate major social ailments associated with increased levels of rural poverty and the scarcity o f fish products in local markets. Those efforts involved the visual and aesthetic transformation o f fishing communities as places where the general public could go to purchase and consume fresh fish. The discussion presented above supports the contention that fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico has been a successful process insofar as the federal and Commonwealth governments transformed traditional fisheries into modem commercial enterprises. I have demonstrated that both governments have played important roles in the construction o f basic infrastructure in all fishing communities, provision o f low-interest loans to purchase and upgrade existing fishing technologies, the creation o f fish markets that could be supplied by the local production, and the organization o f fishermen’s associations as political bodies to bring fishermen together as a social group. In the words o f the Executive Director o f the Caribbean Fishery Management Council, fisheries modernization in Puerto Rican has been successful because the governments have fulfilled the role o f a responsible institution. As he commented in an interview: the government has.... a social responsibility with the fishing industry, although you may not see its immediate economic impact. But what do you do with the small-scale fishermen? Are you going to eliminate them ?.... In other words, where do you send them to fish?14 In this chapter, I have introduced the concept o f “parallel institutionalism” in order to characterize the role that the Puerto Rican and United States governments have


104 played since the late 1950s. Besides the investment o f large sums o f money to build basic fishing infrastructure, it also required synchronization o f all efforts to develop, administer and manage the island’s fisheries in a framework consistent with fisheries modernization. “Parallel institutionalism” was a continuous process that began with the attempts o f the federal and Puerto Rican governments to promote fisheries development during the early 1940s and was consolidated since the late 1950s, when both governments continued to set up a knowledge apparatus that conducted scientific research and promoted fisheries policy. The analysis presented in this chapter does not provide a complete portrayal o f the goals and accomplishments o f “parallel institutionalism” in Puerto Rico. A complete portrayal would involve the examination o f the ways in which fisheries modernization has altered the lives o f small-scale commercial fishermen. In the next chapter, I do precisely this, by analyzing fisheries modernization in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro, and Encamacion, three fishing communities that have been impacted heavily by economic development programs in southern Puerto Rico.


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1. Puerto Rico Fisheries Law (83) o f 1936. Page 2. With some amendments, this is the same law that still regulates commercial fishing practices in Puerto Rico. 2. As I shall discuss, economic and technical assistance o f all sorts have been approved since the 1930s in order to raise the economic well being o f commercial fishermen and other rural laborers. 3. The incipient industrialization program consisted o f the promotion o f government investment to finance the operation o f various industries, such as cardboard, glass and shoe factories that relied on large pools o f semi-skilled labor. Manufacturing production was devoted mainly to supply the basic needs o f the Puerto Rican population. This program, which Pantojas Garcia (1990) has identified as the first phase o f industrial development, was replicated in many Latin American countries beginning in the 1930s and is commonly known as import substitution industrialization. 4. The primary objectives o f the fisheries development program during the 1940s were as follow: to procure and distribute among fishermen materials needed for the construction and replacement of fishing gear and equipment; to establish a loan system that could enable fishermen to purchase boats and fishing gear; to construct refrigeration, warehouse, and docking facilities in the most important fishing centers in the island; to establish modem fish handling, transportation, preservation and marketing techniques; to institute a government fish marketing and distribution system; to organize fishermen’s cooperatives; and to conduct educational campaigns so as to improve fishing practices as well as to increase fish consumption (Vergne Roig n.d.:27). 5. Governor Luis Munoz Marin Annual Report, 1948-1949. Page 46. 6. Governor Jesus T. Pinero Annual Report, 1946-1947. Page 63-64. 7. Project o f the Puerto Rican Senate 88, dated February 19, 1957. A copy o f this document is available at Puerto Rico’s National Historical Archives.


106 8. Memorandum o f October 30, 1954 (P.C. 1291) justifying the amendment o f Law No. 1 (o f January 24, 1951) Program for Food Production and Distribution. The inconsistent funding o f fisheries development during this decade is striking because fishing was considered an important aspect o f the production and distribution o f foodstuffs and a “cornerstone in the program for economic development” (see the Memorandum signed by Luis Rivera Santos, Secretary o f the Department o f Agriculture and Commerce, on October 29, 1956). Apparently, Law 92 originally allocated S34,000 for the Fund for Fisheries Rehabilitation. Unfortunately, since I was unable to consult a larger collection o f historical and legislative documents at the National Historical Archives, the analysis o f inconsistent funding was seriously limited. More significantly, an analysis o f the likely contributions that fisheries development had on agricultural and economic development since the 1950s could not be carried out. 9. Interview with the Director o f the Program for Fisheries Promotion, Development and Administration on October 14, 1997. 10. Interview with the Executive Director o f the Caribbean Fishery Management Council on October 14, 1997. 11. The National Marine Fisheries Service is the federal government agency with primary responsibility for managing marine fisheries from three miles to two hundred miles offshore. The legislation that directs how it manages the nation’s fisheries is the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The latter created eight regional fishery management councils to advise the National Marine Fisheries Service on fisheries management issues. The councils produce fishery management plans with public input that describe the nature and problems o f a fishery along with regulatory recommendations to conserve it. After the Secretary o f Commerce’s approval, regulations to implement fishery management plans become federal law and are enforced by the National Marine Fisheries Service. 12. Law 82 o f July 7, 1979. Page 1. 13. Interview conducted with the Acting Director o f the Fisheries Research Laboratory on October 22, 1997. 14. Interview conducted with the Executive Director o f the Caribbean Fishery Management Council on October 14, 1997.


CHAPTER 4

Narrating memory: Rural development and traditional fisheries modernization in southern Puerto Rico

The value o f local-level studies has reasserted itself as many are finding that, rather to our collective anthropological relief, global processes are, simultaneously and necessarily, local ones. Richard Blanton, et. al 1997:vi

Historical memories are made of personal remembrances On August 15, 1997, during the early morning hours, the winds felt stronger than normal over Playa de Guayanilla and it seemed like a rainstorm was going to hit the small boats floating along the shoreline. Farther onshore, however, the local residents had been coping for about a week with a different kind o f storm, the one provoked by a group of families that squatted in a vast area on the northwest side of the community. Among the squatter families there were people from outside Playa de Guayanilla who occupied the pasture and grazing lands that still belong to the heirs o f Mario Mercado, the sugar baron who controlled agricultural production in the municipality since the turn o f the 20th

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century. Sugarcane was cultivated on those lands until the late 1960s and processed at Central Rufina, the most important sugar mill in the region, located a few miles north o f El Faro. The lack o f new and affordable housing for the growing rural population seemed to have impelled the families to invade the private lands. When I drove by the area, across from the ball park recently constructed by the municipal government, on my way to visit Don Luis, I saw next to the road a thin red thread with hanging cardboard announcing the names of the families who had already claimed a spot in the invaded “promised land.” When I came to Don Luis’ house that afternoon, he was seated comfortably in a plastic chair at the balcony and received me with a smile as transparent as the peaceful rest he had being taking since returning from fishing in the early afternoon hours. During the course o f our conversation, he described with nuanced words and gestures the event that was currently getting the attention o f most residents and municipal authorities in Guayanilla: the land invasions. He did not look surprised as he explained that squatting on private lands is not uncommon in Playa de Guayanilla, a community that, according to him, has managed to grow even without the support o f the Commonwealth and municipal governments. More than indifference, the lack o f any evident signs o f surprise or confusion on his part revealed the complex dynamics o f the settlement and expansion o f Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion. The three communities were founded by families who moved from the highlands o f Guayanilla and Penuelas during the early 1930s in order to find jobs in coastal areas where sugarcane was cultivated. When sugarcane declined in the late 1960s, they obtained work in some factories located in close proximity to the fishing communities. But even though sugarcane production was


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not the force driving families to squat on Mario Mercado’s lands, as it was during the 1930s and 1940s, the squatter settlements that appeared in 1997 evidenced the conditions that currently shape the lives and work experiences o f the residents in the three communities. Even before I started to conduct fieldwork several important events with yet unforeseen consequences and implications were taking place in the region. For example, fishermen from Encamacion complained to me that the ongoing construction of a submarine pipeline to discharge used water into the sea near Punta Cucharas in Ponce interfered with the excursions they make to the inshore fishing grounds. In addition, EcoElectrica, a new power plant that will use natural gas exported from Trinidad and Tobago, was under construction in the north side o f Guayanilla Bay.1 It is a subsidiary o f Kenetech-Enron Corporation and will generate 400 MW o f electricity to help Central Costa Sur Power Plant keep pace with the high demand for energy on the island. The Puerto Rican Electrical Power Authority has determined that the island will need approximately 1,000 MW o f electricity in the next few years because the Puerto Rican government has not constructed a single plant since the late 1980s (see Servicios Cientificos y Tecnicos 1995:Appendix). Although natural gas should produce less contamination than petroleum, which has negatively affected fishing grounds since the government built a huge petrochemical industrial complex in the early 1950s, it is yet undetermined how could Eco-Electrica affect the coastal and marine resources in the region. The potential impact of these new constructions added to the fears, confusion and distress provoked by the land invasions. In fact, the majority o f fishermen that I


no interviewed in Playa de Guayanilla believe that land invasions were a result o f governments’ long-time neglect o f their social and economic needs. Playa de Guayanilla is indeed one o f the poorest rural districts in the municipality. For the past twenty years it has been under the jurisdiction o f INSECO, the Puerto Rican government’s program for community economic and social development. In the late 1960s, for example, it was found that Playa de Guayanilla lacked the conveniences o f other fishing communities in southwest Puerto Rico with comparable population (see Blay 1972). In the late 1970s, it was described as an isolated coastal community that socially resembled a slum rather than a “traditional fishing community” (see Lucca Irizarry 1981:127). The federal and Puerto Rican governments’ efforts to improve socio-economic conditions have not yet altered the conditions o f rural poverty. Fishermen still complain about the bureaucratic hassles that they confront in order to receive financial and institutional support. For Don Luis and many local fishermen the squatter families did the right thing, that is, they made a decision to continue growing as a community even without government help. As he put it: we have made La Playa [de Guayanilla] into what it is now, the [municipal] government did not make it. I will tell you more, La Playa has been made by those who have lived here because we have never received enough support from the government, you know, because we are at the bottom. We have made it I say that the government has done very little, I can tell you the few things that it has done here....2 But is it not true, as I suggested in the previous chapter, that federal, Puerto Rican and municipal governments’ intervention in the affairs o f the fishing communities has dramatically altered the fishermen’s lives? Are not fishermen’s historical imaginations and discourses based on the partial renderings that personal memories allow? Finally, is the anthropologist’s “sense for the other” merely a thin layer that serves as a filter


Ill conditioning what is appropriate (or not) to ask and investigate? Fishermen’s discourses and memories are powerful tools with which they construct and imagine their histories, lives and work experiences. While fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla acknowledged that government intervention in their communities has been positive they harshly criticized neglected aspects o f social infrastructure such as housing conditions. Fishermen’s narratives are vital tools to understand socio-economic transformations in local fisheries, but in the case at hand personal memories proved to be a confusing battleground that contradicted and challenged some assumptions and constructions o f community and fisheries development. Like a fishing net that only captures certain species and allows others to escape, memory is prone to subtle manipulations that help disguise political tensions and ambiguities. John and Jean Comaroff (1992) have recently suggested that history and anthropology are inextricably linked to the production o f ethnographic representations. But, as I discover in my interaction with local fishermen, it is also true that anthropological knowledge is fragmented insofar as it relies on partial remembrances conveyed through fishermen’s discourses and memories. Relying on data gathered from various structured interviews with commercial fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, this chapter (reconstructs the transformation o f rural economy in the region under study. The fishermen vividly recalled how sugarcane cultivation and processing, the dominant form o f economic production until the late 1960s, related to fishing and how the latter helped them supplement their household’s incomes and diets. They also talked about the transformation o f traditional fishing practices and pointed out that such transformation was under way even before the Puerto Rican and municipal governments began to implement the first fisheries


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development programs. The older fishermen, those who have had some experience working in the sugarcane fields and sugar mills, narrated their memories as employees o f Central Rufina while the younger ones narrated their fathers’ memories o f eeking out a living from both fishing and sugarcane production. The latter group also talked about their own working experiences in the construction of various petrochemical industries and oil refineries located in close proximity to where they both live and fish. The picture that emerged from those narrated memories is o f a region incorporated into Puerto Rico’s political and economic system since the early 17th century, an island struggling to keep pace with global trends favoring capitalist development and modernization. It should be clear that whenever I describe the region I am referring to the coastal landscape and environments shared by Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion. I will argue that direct and frequent engagement with the coastal landscape partly explains the similarities o f rural development processes put in place until the present. The region has been incorporated into the world economy ever since Spanish colonizers began to produce agricultural commodities for export to international markets. As a result o f various economic development processes that accelerated its incorporation into the world economy since the 1950s, the coastal landscape has been altered tremendously and it now shows the all too-familiar outcomes of industrialization and de-industrialization noted in other coastal areas around the world (see, for instance, C erf 1990, Koester 1986, Kottak 1999). Although fisheries modernization has impacted differently upon the local economies o f Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, industrialization has had similar outcomes in the three fishing communities. As I shall explain, Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion have been more heavily impacted by fisheries modernization programs


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than El Faro. This may reflect the fact that in the first two communities commercial fishing has been practiced to a larger extent than in El Faro, where the governments have not yet attempted to modernize the local fisheries.

Mapping the region: Nature, history and the dynamics of economic development The region where Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion are located lies at approximately 17.58° N latitude and 66.39° W longitude, about 15 kms. west o f Ponce, and is characterized by low levels o f rainfall and the predominance o f arid soils. The municipality o f Guayanilla occupies an area o f 42.4 mi2 and includes seventeen rural districts or barrios (see Figure 4.1). In 1990, it had approximately 21,581 inhabitants increasing to an estimated 27,830 inhabitants in 1997, a growth rate o f 29%. The municipality o f Peftuelas measures approximately 45 mi2 and consists o f 18 barrios (see Figure 4.2). In 1990, it had 22,515 inhabitants and the estimates for 1997 put the total population at approximately 26,858 inhabitants, a growth rate o f 19.3%.3 Both municipalities extend from the Caribbean Sea upward to the Cordillera Central, the mountainous range that runs continuously from the eastern to the western part o f the island, and thus include coastal valleys, semi-arid hills and forested highlands. These geographic and climatic features allow for the cultivation o f sugarcane, coffee, tobacco and fruits and livestock and cattle raising as the major economic pursuits. Although economic reports produced by the Puerto Rican government generally overlook its contribution, fishing has always played an important role supplementing the agricultural and industrial activities available in the region, especially in the community o f Playa de


114 Guayanilla (see Naley 1955, Nazario 1893:130-131,

Sievens Irizarry 1983, Toro

Sugranes 1995:169).

Figure 4.1 Map o f Guayanilla and its barrios

Adjuntas

Sabana Grande

Yauco Penuelas Ponce

Guanica

Caribbean Sea 0

12 Kilometers


115

Figure 4.2 Map of Peftuelas and its barrios

Yauco

Guayanilla

C arib b ean S e a

10 Kilometers


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Two relatively small bays, Guayanilla Bay and Tallaboa Bay, define the main features o f the coastal landscape. Guayanilla Bay is the larger o f the two and covers approximately eight kms.2; it is protected from storms by Punta Verraco and Punta Guayanilla, two protruding land masses covered with wetlands, mangroves and xerophitic vegetation. Also along the coast there are great extensions of sub-tropical dry forests, which extend into the municipality o f Guanica in the southwest coast o f Puerto Rico. A few miles from the coast there are various islets and sandy cays, such as Cayo Mata, Cayo Caribe, Cayo Palomas and Cayo Maria Langa, that are home to abundant sea grapes, red mangroves, and majagua, and comprise some o f the best fishing grounds in the inshore areas. The shallow waters of the insular platform are also rich in coral reefs that nurture a diversity o f marine plants and animals and constitute natural breakwaters to protect coasts from erosion (see Comite Pro Rescate del Buen Ambiente de Guayanilla 1996:1-5). Also in the shallow waters there are extensive areas o f sea grass that help provide a natural habitat for the reproduction o f various fish species with commercial value for local fishermen. The mangrove forests are amply dominated by the red mangrove. The Coastal Zone Program of Puerto Rico’s Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources recently conducted research in the region and identified two important mangrove zones. The first one is known as Manglar del Puerto de Guayanilla, an area of approximately 332 cuerdas,4 that borders the internal shore o f Punta Verraco and continues towards the west and south, almost reaching the community o f Playa de Guayanilla. The second mangrove zone is known as Manglar de la Bahia de Guayanilla and is located in the east side o f the bay, directly affected by contamination by the Central Costa Sur Power Plant.


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It has an extension o f approximately 48 cuerdas (Servicios Cientificos y Tecnicos 1995:44). Mangroves are important natural ecosystems because they protect coasts from erosion, tides, hurricanes and storms; they also function as feeding grounds for fish and other marine species and as refuge for wild life; and they produce organic materials that are necessary to maintain food chains o f which both animals and humans depend. The region’s coastal landscape has been rapidly transformed since the mid-1950s by heavy industrialization in areas near the coast, which nowadays is dotted with rusted chimneys and abandoned oil storage tanks that are remnants o f an aborted development strategy based on the construction o f petrochemical plants and oil refineries. The promotion o f such heavy industries was the backbone o f the capital importation/exportprocessing (CI/EP) strategy that Pantojas Garcia (1990:101-142) has identified as the second stage o f industrial development in Puerto Rico (see also Baver 1993:47-69, Dietz 1986:252-255, Maldonado 1997:155-159). The establishment o f the petrochemicals and oil refineries complex was based on “the allocation to Puerto Rico o f special oil imports quotas between 1965-1973” (Pantojas Garcia 1990:106). Presidential Proclamation 3663 o f December 10, 1965 completed the legal framework o f oil importation in Puerto Rico by amending Proclamation 3279 of 1959 and changing the limitations to oil imports. Presidential Proclamation 3279 imposed limitations on oil imports from foreign countries and was at odds with further plans to develop a petrochemical complex on the island. Without the amendment o f Proclamation 3279 the expansion of the oil industry (two oil refineries had operated in the island since 1955) would have been halted. Proclamation 3663 thus provided the key incentive for developing a petrochemical industry in Puerto


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Rico by allowing the United States Secretary o f Interior to assign special oil quotas in order to stimulate the island’s economic development. As a result o f rapid and careless industrialization in coastal landscapes, both the Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays are heavily contaminated with discharges o f hot water and pollutants from nearby industries and oil refineries (see Chartock 1980). Chemical and industrial contamination, as well as discharges o f hot water from the Central Costa Sur Power Plant, negatively affect fish populations and other marine invertebrates that inhabit the bays, especially during the larval and spawning phases. During these two phases, fish and other organisms are at the mercy o f water currents. Also as a result o f heavy industrial pollution, both the Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays experienced until recently a significant reduction in the quantity and diversity o f fish and mollusks, such as the queen conch. Fortunately for the present and future activities of local fishermen, since the early 1980s industrial pollution levels have decreased and a recovery of certain fish species has been noted both by fishermen and environmentalists (see Servicios Cientificos y Tecnicos 1995:89). Chemical and industrial pollution in the bays has diminished mainly because most industries have shut down operations either as a result o f complaints by residents from Guayanilla and Penuelas or a decline in foreign investment in petrochemical and oil refining industries. In a research study carried out during the late 1970s, at a time when industrialization and petrochemical production in the region was abating, the coastal landscape was described as follows: the southern coast of Puerto Rico is noted for its diversity o f marine habitats. It is lined with long stretches o f luxuriant mangrove forests, dense beds o f turtle grass, and coral reefs. The near shore islets also reflect these features. All these habitats are teeming with an exquisite variety o f


119 marine life that make up the food webs o f which man is one o f the important members. Guayanilla Bay, located on the south coast o f Puerto Rico, is a significant component o f the region. It is polluted primarily by energy-related effluents and has offered, and will offer, a unique field laboratory to assess the dynamics o f bioavailability, uptake and transport of toxic (acute and chronic) contaminants through tropical marine ecosystems. Further, the long exposure to uninterrupted discharges accompanied by occasional spills has led to their accumulation in the sediments which in turn have become non-localized pollution sources (Gonzalez 1979:90-91). The few industries that still operate in areas close to Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion do not provide enough employment opportunities to local residents; the work they are able to obtain is primarily in low-paying semi-skilled or unskilled positions. More significantly, industrial development during the last two decades has been practically halted, thus reducing regional development opportunities. For example, it is estimated that in Guayanilla unemployment rate is close to 16% while in Petluelas it is estimated at approximately 24.6%, higher than the total unemployment rate for Puerto Rico.5 Limited employment opportunities are available in various government offices and small stores in the municipal towns but agriculture still provides many rural workers with seasonal jobs. For instance, Tropical Fruit, an Israeli-owned corporation, owns approximately 1,232 cuerdas in Barrio Boca, a few miles west o f El Faro, that it devotes to the

cultivation o f bananas and mangoes for export to international markets. The

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently sued the company and demanded the elimination o f all pesticides used to grow bananas and mangoes.6 Some local residents find work for the heirs of Mario Mercado, who own the lands north o f El Faro that are cultivated with vegetable and fruits that they distribute mostly in local markets.


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Indeed, the region has always depended on agriculture to provide local residents with employment and the municipalities with municipal revenues. Guayanilla is located in a fertile valley with relatively easy access to the ocean, where a port constructed in the mid-17th century helped boost the regional economy until it was closed in the early 19th century. During the late 18th' and early 19th centuries, the capital city o f San Juan had the only official port in Puerto Rico and thus the Guayanilla port served as an entry point to numerous political refugees and adventurers coming from the Spanish colonies in South America and the Caribbean, as well as to individuals engaged in legal and illegal commerce. Most commercial transactions were carried out with the port of Saint Thomas and involved the trade o f sugarcane, coffee, tobacco, raw cowhides and fruits. In 1877, for instance, 2,573,676 pounds o f sugar, 161,390 pounds o f coffee, and 1,231 bocoyes1 o f molasses, valued at 177,782.27 pesos, were exported from the port of Guayanilla to various European countries. On the other hand, imports for the same year were estimated at 31,765.45 pesos. In Penuelas, a port was constructed during the mid-18th century in what is today kno wn as Tallaboa Bay but its contribution to the regional agricultural economy was less significant because sugarcane cultivation, the most important economic activity at the time, did not develop extensively in the municipality. Apparently, sugarcane was cultivated most extensively in Penuelas during the last quarter o f the 19th century, at a time when sugarcane production in Guayanilla and other Puerto Rican municipalities had declined due to lack o f capital to upgrade technologies to produce sugar, as well as a decline of sugar prices in international markets. With the emergence of the sugar mill complex in the early 20th century, sugarcane production in Pefiuelas was limited to the


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cultivation and harvesting o f sugarcane. Although during the 18th and 19th centuries there were a few important haciendas, like Hacienda Dolores and Hacienda Julia, no sugar mill o f any importance was developed in the municipality until the late 20th century. This may have resulted from the fact that in Penuelas coastal valleys are arid and less suitable for sugarcane cultivation. In addition, when the hacienda economy collapsed, subsidiary industries like rum and molasses also disappeared. The ports o f Guayanilla and Pefiuelas, however, fostered the establishment of various merchant houses and other commercial infrastructure, like a custom house and a small fortress in the Bay o f Guayanilla, that permitted the southern region to compete for economic power and prestige with other coastal regions in the island. But when the port o f Guayanilla remained closed to foreign trade from 1841 to 1871, the regional economy collapsed (Sievens Irrizarry 1983:24). Agriculture in Guayanilla was a relatively prosperous enterprise even before it was founded as a separate municipality in 1833.8 As also happened in Penuelas, in Guayanilla coastal valleys were devoted to sugarcane and fruit cultivation and the highlands to coffee. Livestock and cattle raising became the most important economic activities in the semi-arid lowlands while fishing supplemented household incomes and diets in coastal areas. Similar to other coastal regions in Puerto Rico, sugarcane cultivation became the foremost economic activity, both in terms of the amount o f land under cultivation and its contribution to municipal revenues. For instance, in 1840, 750 acres o f land were cultivated with sugarcane and 2,970,413 pounds were exported at a value o f 187,500pesos (Sievens Irizarry 1983:21). In 1877, six sugarcane haciendas were being operated with steam engines, a technological advance that improved and expedited the old sugar refining process based on horse-drawn mills.9 Two o f these haciendas


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(Hacienda Buena Vista and Hacienda San Colombano) were located in Playa de Guayanilla whereas two more (Hacienda El Faro and Hacienda Rufina) were located in Barrio Rufina (Sievens Irizarry 1983:21-22). Throughout the 19th century both Guayanilla and Pefiuelas produced moderate amounts o f sugarcane. When we compare their total agricultural output with other sugarcane producing municipalities and regions in southern Puerto Rico, it is noted that sugarcane cultivation in Guayanilla and Penuelas remained primarily a localized industry (Sievens Irrizary 1983:23, see also Mintz 1956:321-323). More importantly, as I will explain below, the most important sugar mills in the region —Central Rufina and Central San Francisco— never achieved the same productive capacity o f other sugar mills located in southern Puerto Rico, like Central Guanica, Central Mercedita in Ponce and Central Aguirre in Guayama (Mintz 1956:322-323). Both Central Rufina and Central San Francisco were important for the region’s agricultural development because they provided many rural laborers with opportunities to increase their wages and thus improve their household incomes. The closing o f the Guayanilla port in the late 19th century coincided with the price collapse for sugarcane in international markets. New developments in sugarcane production had to wait until United States colonial take-over in 1898. Perhaps the most important economic change was the concentration o f large land plots in a few sugar estates that led to the emergence o f few powerful sugar mills, or centrales, that controlled the entire productive process10 (see Ramos Mattei 1981:82 and Ramos Mattei 1988). In 1901, three years after United States gained colonial control, Central Rufina was founded in Guayanilla and soon became the most important source of employment for rural


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laborers and the collection o f municipal revenues. It was created from the concentration o f lands previously controlled by the owners o f Hacienda San Colombano, Hacienda El Faro and Hacienda Rufina. Between 1927 and 1928, Central Rufina was ranked fifteenth among forty one sugar mills operating in Puerto Rico. Total production for that year was estimated at 17,852 tons o f sugar, and for 1933-1934 it was estimated at 36,000 tons (see Table 4.1). In 1967, the mill shut down operations partly because serious disputes arose among the heirs o f Mario Mercado as to who was going to inherit the largest share o f wealth and the best lands11 (Sievens Irizarry 1983:36). In 1913, Arturo Lluveras, another sugar baron, bought Hacienda Mercedes, Hacienda Maria Antonia and Hacienda Santa Rosa and founded Central San Francisco in Barrio Indios. The following year Central San Francisco produced approximately 1,267.50 tons o f sugar and in the next four decades it steadily increased production, reaching 2,230 tons in 1922 and 10,458 tons in 1956 (see Sievens Irrizary 1983:39-40). Central San Francisco provided steady employment to workers living in the western districts o f Guayanilla as well as in the eastern districts o f Yauco. However, it remained a relatively small sugar mill whose impact was felt most directly in that part o f the region. For example, in 1927 it was ranked thirty seventh among all sugar mills operating in Puerto Rico (see Table 4.1) and in 1978, when it finally ceased to operate, it was the smallest existing sugar mill. At that time it was also the last sugar mill privately owned. As occurred in Central Rufina, sugarcane production in Central San Francisco depended on a labor force o f rural workers who migrated in great numbers from the highlands to the coastal areas in search o f employment opportunities. As I shall explain below and in the


124 next chapter, those migrants also fished when sugarcane harvesting and processing seasons ended.

Table 4.1 List of sugar mills in order of rated capacity, with production for selected years

Sugar mill Guanica

Rated capacity per 24 hours 8,000

Aguirre

Production in tons of 2,000 pounds 1934-1935 1933-1934 1927-1928 112,840

152,244

98,249

4,500

79,899

77,096

66,291

Fajardo

4,400

48,679

86,398

54,230

Cambalache

2,800

30,263

44,377

31,048

Roig

2,750

25,782

34,580

24,129

Coloso

2,000

23,363

38,123

29,352

Mercedita

2,000

27,002

44,945

34,442

Pasto Viejo (Eastern)

2,000

18,106

40,850

28,977

Canovanas (Fajardo)

1,900

28,550

45,063

27,177

Constancia-Toa

1,900

16,155

29,212

17,808

Juncos (Eastern)

1,800

24,231

28,979

20,956

Plazuela

1,750

18,624

27,912

16,923

Lafayette

1,700

23,401

37,378

26,365

San Vicente

1,700

21,555

33,609

23,213


125 Rufina

1,500

17,852

36,000*

24,224

Machete (Aguirre)

1,250

21,171

26,584

23,653

Boca Chica

1,400

13,850

19,433

15,317

Cortada (Aguirre)

1,200

21,030

26,383

21,506

Playa Grande

1,200

13,088

8,915

5,612

Defensa (Eastern)

1,100

13,471

19,816

14,237

Los Canos

1,050

10,117

16,086

10,131

Victoria

1,050

11,606

19,339

13,820

Carmen

1,000

12,729

17,698

12,942

El Ejemplo

1,000

13,942

17,078

12,005

Guamani

1,000

15,772

8,761

Juanita

1,000

9,333

15,584

10,456

Monserrate

1,000

9,080

15,000“

7,545

Santa Juana (Eastern)

1,000

6,715

15,831

12,239

Vannina

1,000

10,188

19,521

12,383

Eureka

900

7,817

14,571

9,939

Plata

850

3,159

11,710

9,377

Igualdad

750

7,412

15,327

10,218

Rochelaise

700

7,775

13,862

8,707

Caribe

600

8,085

5,997

Constancia-Ponce

550

6,630

9,866

8,302

Cayey (Eastern)

450

1,818

8,657

5,450

San Francisco

360

6,404

7,778

5,258


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Soller

300

1,617

5,694

5,984

Santa Barbara

250

729

3,528

3,999

Herminia

150

1,767

2,072

2,355

Pellejas

150

592

1,443

1,156

1,113,399

780,741

Totalb

728,352

Source: Gayer, Homan and James. The sugar economy of Puerto Rico, 1938:80 a Estimated. b The difference between the totals and the sum o f the column figures is due to the omission o f decimals in the columns.

During the early 20th century, coffee and sugarcane were the most important agricultural commodities cultivated in the region although other commodities like tobacco, cotton and fruits were also grown. Cotton never developed into an important economic enterprise but since 1911 various cigar factories were established in Pefiuelas with relative economic success. By 1917, however, most cigar factories had transferred operations to Ponce because cigar makers frequently went on strike demanding better wages and working conditions. During the 1920s, the regional economy diversified and thus small brick and needlework industries, as well as com and fruit juice processing factories, were also founded. Production in these new industries depended primarily on household labor force. Neither needlework nor brick industries ever achieved the economic significance o f tobacco cultivation or cigar making (see Balasquide 1972:217).


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Especially in the 1930s, the brick and needlework industries became m ajor sources o f salaried employment for a large segment o f the female population (see Baerga 1993). The most recent economic development trend developed in the mid-1950s, when industrialization was heavily promoted alongside the Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. This critically reduced agriculture’s contributions to the reproduction o f the rural household economy. Industrialization was based on the creation o f a huge petrochemical and oil refining complex and subsisdiary industries to sustain large-scale industrial production in nearby areas. For example, the Central Costa Sur Power Plant supplies electricity to the industrial complex as well as to the majority o f municipalities on the south and west coasts o f the island. A more detailed analysis o f industrialization will be provided in Chapter 6, where I explore how industry has conditioned fishermen’s perceptions of economic development and its influence on processes o f semi-proletarianization and de proletarianization in the region. Table 4.2 shows the great number o f industries located from

1956, when the Commonwealth Oil Refining Company (CORCO) started

production, to the present. The majority were located in Pefiuelas, although their economic impact extended throughout the region, even to areas far away from both Guayanilla and Penuelas. Since the mid-1980s most industries have been established and owned by Puerto Rican capitalists.


128

Table 4. 2 List o f industries located along the Guayanilla and Peftuelas Bays

Location

Years o f operation

Penuelas

1 9 5 6 -1 9 8 2

Costa Sur Power Plant

Guayanilla

1958 - Present

South Puerto Rico Towing and Boat Service, INC.

Guayanilla

1958 - Present

Union Carbide

Penuelas

1 9 5 9 -1 9 8 5

Hercor Chemical Corp.

Penuelas

1966 - 1982

Peerles Oil Chemicals

Pefiuelas

1968 - 1981

Styrochem Corpration

Penuelas

1968 - 1982

Guayanilla

1970 - Present

Orochem Enterprises

Penuelas

1971 - 1978

ESSO Standard Oil

Penuelas

1971 - 1978

Puerto Rico Olefins Plant

Pefiuelas

1971 - 1978

Pittsburgh Plate and Glass Industries

Guayanilla

1 9 7 2 -1 9 7 8

Rico Chemicals Corp.

Guayanilla

1 9 7 5 - 1981

Caribe Isoprene Corp.

Pefiuelas

1975 - 1982

Oxochem Enterprises

Pefiuelas

1 9 7 6 -1 9 7 8

Industrial Chemicals Corporation

Pefiuelas

1977 —Present

DEMACO

Guayanilla

1984 - Present

BETTEROADS

Guayanilla

1985 - Present

Arochem International

Pefiuelas

1988 - 1992

Name o f the industry Commonwealth Oil Company (CORCO)

Air Products Puerto Rico

and

Refining

Chemicals

of


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Vassal lo Paints and Coatings

Guayanilla

1988 - Present

Peerless Oil and Chemicals

Penuelas

1989 - Present

TEXACO Industries

Guayanilla

1990 - Present

Adapted from Servicios Cientificos y Tdcnicos. Proyecto de Investigacidn de la calidad del agua en la Bahia de Guayanilla, Puerto Rico. 1995:64-67

Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnaci6n: Beyond the anthropological representations of the “traditional fishing community” When driving through Puerto Rico Highway #2 from Ponce to Guayanilla the tall chimneys o f the factories and industries that once formed the huge petrochemical and oil refining complex dominated by the Commonwealth Oil Refining Company (CORCO) salute passengers with their gloomy presence. While the majority o f industries are now abandoned others, like the Central Costa Sur Power Plant and Industrial Chemicals, have maintained their operations uninterruptedly. If one is travelling at nighttime the dull spectacle o f lights, now less attractive but equally captivating that during the 1970s, disguise the irregular features o f the southern coast where the inhabitants o f Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion sleep away, unaware o f the great number of cars passing nearby. Coming from Ponce en route to Guayanilla, Encamacion is the first community seen from the highway. Las parcelas, or the main residential area, is on the north side of the highway at a short distance from the northeast side o f the petrochemical and oil refinery complexes. El Boquete, the area where the fishing facilities are located,


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lies on the opposite side o f the highway facing the oceanfront. Encamacion also includes El Pueblo, where the municipality o f Pefiuelas is said to have originated; Los Valdivieso, where Hacienda Dolores and Hacienda Julia (the most important economic ventures during the late 19th century) were located; Las Salinas, an area that in the 1950s was devoted to the commercial production o f salt and later was the site for a small aquaculture project; and El Penon, which delimits the boundary with Ponce. The 1990 population census indicated 1,154 inhabitants residing in Encamacion (see Table 4.3). Most o f them live in las parcelas in houses constructed along the three roads that run parallel to the highway. In addition, there are more houses on three roads that run perpendicular to the highway and extend into the hills, thus forming a gridline settlement pattern (see Figure 4.3). At the time o f my field research the hills were being bulldozed in order to build more houses for the newly arrived inhabitants. Some families still live in El Pueblo, across the highway, in small, old wooden houses. Migrants from various parts o f the municipality began to settle in las parcelas even before the Puerto Rican government implemented a land distribution program in the 1940s to distribute small land plots to peasants and rural proletarians. According to some fishermen, in the 1950s there were approximately 35 families living in what today is known as las parcelas and about five or six families in Las Salinas in a small tract o f land next to the coastline. A dirt road connected las parcelas to Las Salinas; today the road is paved and serves as the entrance to El Boquete. Besides the fishing facilities, El Boquete contains a restaurant that buys most o f the catch from the local fishermen and a small store that is also the place where people gather after returning from fishing excursions. Running parallel to the shoreline, and stretching to the east side of El Boquete, there are eighteen houses where


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some o f the original residents o f Las Salinas now live. Some o f the houses are for rent and others are used mainly by people from outside the community as summer vacation homes. In the lower level o f one o f them there is a small shop whose owner rents kayaks and jet skis and also takes tourists to nearby islets in his charter boat. Encamacion was incorporated as a rural district o f Pefluelas in 1874. The historical records indicate that in 1775 residents from the original settlement (El Pueblo) petitioned to found Pefluelas as a separate municipality (Balasquide 1972, Torres Velazquez n.d.:3). The Spanish colonizers explored the area early during the 16th century, but they did not settle it until the late 17th century. During the mid-18th century, they constructed a port in what is today Tallaboa Bay, which played a vital role in the development o f the regional economy until the mid-19th century. The original settlement, El Pueblo, was located across from the port and founded by merchants and people who came from the other rural districts of the municipality to trade in agricultural commodities. El Pueblo was constantly attacked by European pirates as well as Carib Indians and besieged by the high tides that frequently inundated the coast. The settlers feared that high tides would someday obliterate El Pueblo and thus decided to move inland to a safer place. In 1793 they founded San Jose de Pefluelas where the present-day municipality is located. The new settlement was founded approximately 7 kms. from the coast in a valley surrounded by boulders that protected the inhabitants against attacks from European pirates and Carib Indians (Toro Sugranes 1995:309-310).


Figure 4 3 Aerial view of the fishing community of Encamacion

El Pueblo was soon repopulated because it was located in close proximity' to the trade routes opened up by commercial activities in the port. Many local residents still believe that in 1856 the rising waters o f the Caribbean Sea threatened to wipe out the entire settlement once again. This time the residents implored God to make the furious


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tides recede. Through the presence o f the Holy Spirit, God assumed the form o f the Santo Cristo de la Salud and contained the rising Caribbean waters, thus saving the settlement from ruin (Torres Velazquez n.d.:3). This tale is commonly repeated by many residents o f the municipality and used as an example of God’s divine power and humanity’s faith in miracles. Furthermore, it became a powerful narrative o f legendary and mythical proportions to the extent that Pefluelas adopted Santo Cristo de la Salud as its patron saint. Also, the local fishermen named their association after him. El Pueblo, on the other hand, remained a small port town where agricultural commodities were traded while San Jose de Pefluelas became the seat o f municipal economic and political power. When Encamacion was incorporated as a rural district o f Pefluelas in 1874 El Pueblo became one of its sectors. El Pueblo has retained a tranquil ambience, as if the hectic days of trading and commercial transactions never existed. To an outsider, in fact, it looks like a town constructed from the historical imagination o f the peoples’ myths and memories. Today Route 127 is the only road that passes through it, and the old wooden houses, as well as the small family shops, the original Catholic church, an elementary school, and a junior high school, are the only buildings that adom its environs. This same road extends further to the west cutting across the petrochemical and oil refining complex and provides access to both Route 336, which leads into Playa de Guayanilla, and Route 335, which leads into El Faro. The short trajectory between Encamacion and El Faro takes about half an hour as these routes are much less travelled than Puerto Rican Highway #2. However, while travelling through Route 127 toward Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro one’s eyes can get blurred by the somber visual landscape o f de-industrialization represented by the rusted chimneys and tanks of the petrochemical complex. Until the


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road approaches the cliffs from where which one can glimpse Playa de Guayanilla, it is flanked by abandoned buildings —more images o f de-industrialization. Route 336 is the main entrance to Playa de Guayanilla. The community can be accessed alternatively through a smaller road that leads directly to Plaza del Pescador Desaparecido, a small square recently built by the municipal government in order to pay homage to the memory o f a fishing crew from this community that disappeared while on a fishing trip to the Dominican Republic. The community is bordered on the west side by the Guayanilla River and on the north side by the pasture and grazing lands that were invaded in 1997. Three small shallow creeks, each one covered with mangrove vegetation and refuse that residents and visitors have discarded, intersperse the community at various places. The creeks are also the landmarks that the local fishermen use to divide the community into three main sections: San Pedro de Macons, Honradez, and Villa del Carmen.12 As I shall explain below, there are no clear-cut boundaries between the three sections, probably because the roads and houses are clustered together in a rather small area (see Figure 4.4). Measuring only .51 mi2, Playa de Guayanilla is the smallest rural district of the municipality. The 1990 population census enumerated 1,262 inhabitants. The population increased steadily from 467 inhabitants in 1910, the first year for which census data were provided, to 909 inhabitants in 1940. However, from 1950 to 1980 the population has fluctuated between 1,287 in 1950 to 1,704 in 1970 to 1,471 in 1980 as it has followed the vagaries o f agricultural and industrial development in the region (see Table 4.3).


135

Figure 4.4 Aerial view o f the fulling community o f Playa de Guayanilla


136

Playa de Guayanilla is located in a vast sugarcane area that dominated agricultural production in the coastal valleys beginning at the turn o f the 20th century. The oceanfront, on the other hand, is characterized by the presence o f dense mangrove forests along the coast and the estuary o f the Guayanilla River. Today sugarcane cultivation is no longer a major economic activity, and during the past five decades a sizable portion o f mangrove forests have been cut down in order to construct houses, roads, restaurants and bridges as well as the industries located on the north side o f Guayanilla Bay. San Pedro de Macon's, located near the estuary o f the Guayanilla River, was originally settled during the 1940s by twelve or fifteen families that migrated from the highlands to work in the sugarcane fields. The families were attracted to the coast by the increasing commercial and economic activities that sugarcane production was promoting in the region. As Mintz (1956:321) documented earlier, a similar migration process from the highlands to the coastal areas o f southern Puerto Rico was a salient feature o f the settlement and early urbanization o f coastal zones during the 1940s and 1950s. Most residents from San Pedro de Macons worked for Central Rufina. When the sugarcane harvest and processing season came to an end they fished and raised cattle and livestock or tended their home gardens. This combination o f economic strategies followed the pattern o f occupational multiplicity that Comitas (1962) initially described in his study of the Jamaican rural economy and which has been further analyzed in recent historical and ethnographic accounts o f Caribbean peasantries (see Giusti Cordero 1994, Johnson 1972, Mintz 1956:353, 355, 360-367, Price 1966, Valdes Pizzini 1990a:61-72). San Pedro de Macon's was connected to the municipal town by a dirt road, appropriately called Camino Viejo (or old road), along which the families that continued to migrate to the


137

coast built more houses. Consequently a small cluster o f houses appeared on the eastern side o f San Pedro de Macons and a new settlement, called Honradez, came to distinguish itself from the former. The new settlement accounted for the population increases noted in the census reports for Guayanilla in 1940 and 1960 (see Table 4.3). Honradez consisted originally o f approximately eleven families who occupied an area close to the rails that Central Rufina used to ship refined sugar from the piers at Guayanilla Bay. The piers were located in what is today Playa de Guayanilla but at the time employed mainly residents from Honradez. Refined sugar was transported to the beach by train in bags weighing approximately 275 pounds. Once there, workers loaded the bags on to small jetties in order to carry them to the ships awaiting a short distance from the shore. According to local fishermen, shipping refined sugar from Playa de Guayanilla involved different work gangs that loaded the jetties, provided water to thirsty workers, mended and stitched damaged bags and hauled sugar bags into boats using winches. Each work gang earned a different salary because laborers were paid at piece rate according to the number o f bags that they loaded. According to some estimates, a jetty could carry between 300 and 400 bags o f sugar and ships had the capacity to store between 20,000 and 30,000 bags. Transporting sugar bags from Central Rufina, loading the jetties in Playa de Guayanilla and hauling bags o f refined sugar into the ships took between four and six days each summer. Therefore, a typical working year for the local fishermen consisted o f three to four months planting and harvesting sugarcane, two or three months processing and refining sugarcane in Central Rufina and a few days during the summer shipping it from


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the beach. When they were not working in any o f these tasks, they fished or engaged in other productive activities. Central Rufina closed the piers in Playa de Guayanilla around 1950. However, it continued to produce sugarcane until the late 1960s (the last harvest was in 1966-1967) and used the Ponce port to ship refined sugar. Already by the 1950s, sugarcane production in Puerto Rico had declined dramatically. For many residents in Playa de Guayanilla heavily involved in the sugar industry, this meant the demise o f a “traditional” way o f life. One fisherman from Honradez, who used to work on the piers, lamented the lack o f job opportunities after Central Rufina closed. He argued that “when the piers closed, the community went down because fishing and sugarcane provided our economic support!” 13 His regret was echoed by many other fishermen who contrasted the period when sugarcane cultivation was the mainstay o f Playa de Guayanilla with the period o f economic decline and resource degradation associated with industrialization. In the beachfront, next to Honradez, there was a small settlement known as Shangai. Today, however, only a few families live there as most o f its original settlers have either died or moved out. Shangai has been recently encircled by houses, bars and restaurants constructed since the relocation in the late 1960s of fishermen from Penoncillo, another community in the north side o f Guayanilla Bay. The fishermen from Peiioncillo were relocated in order to construct the pipelines that Pittsburgh Plates and Glass (PPG) Industries used to discharge industrial pollutants into the Caribbean Sea. The relocated settlement was initially known as Villa Mosquito and it is now called Villa del Carmen. All fishermen that I interviewed there remembered that when they were relocated Shangai was still populated by a small number o f fishermen. Residents from


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both Shangai and Peiioncillo derived their livelihood predominantly from fishing and worked seasonally in sugarcane production, although to a lesser extent than did the fishermen from San Pedro de Macon's and Honradez. When the fishermen from Peiioncillo were relocated to Villa del Carmen, sugarcane production was no longer an important economic activity. The new settlement was established next to the coastline surrounded by dense mangrove forests bordering the lands that used to belong to the heirs o f Mario Mercado. Large segments o f mangrove forests had to be cut down and wetlands filled with clay soil before new houses, roads and bridges could be built. At the time o f the relocation in the late 1960s the lands were still cultivated with cash crops like coconuts, bananas and other kinds of fruit. With the help of the Puerto Rican government, which had been enthusiastically promoting industrial development in the region since the mid-1950s, Pittsburgh Plate and Glass (PPG) Industries bought the farms as well as the lands where the community o f Peiioncillo was located. Although many fishermen wanted to remain there, and indeed opposed the construction o f PPG Industries, their houses were tom down without delay. One o f the fishermen interviewed in Villa del Carmen remembered that when his family moved to the new settlement in 1969, there were four families already living there. Since Villa del Carmen was “planned” as a distinct section o f Playa de Guayanilla in order to construct PPG Industries, it boasts wider roads and bigger homes than both San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez. In addition, it is in Villa del Carmen where most o f the community’s bars and restaurants are currently located, making it the most frequently visited section o f Playa de Guayanilla. When Villa del Carmen was founded on the


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eastern side o f the community, direct access to San Pedro de Macons and Honradez from Route 336 was cut off. In order to get access to the latter two sections, residents as well as visitors must go across Villa del Carmen and may buy products in bars and restaurants before they could get to their homes in San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez. This situation generated a heated debate between residents from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez and the municipal administrators because the former feel isolated and forsaken in a location far from town and the commercial hubs at Villa del Carmen. In addition, they argue that when it rains heavily their houses are threatened by flooding from the Guayanilla River. Due to the fact that their homes are in close proximity to the river and the shoreline, and there is only one road that enters the community, access to outside help is dangerously reduced. Residents from Playa de Guayanilla can easily get to El Faro by walking along the coastline. In fact, some o f the newly established residents in Playa de Guayanilla came from El Faro and there is constant movement back and forth between the two communities. El Faro is a small community within the jurisdiction o f Barrio Rufina located at approximately 2 kms. west of Playa de Guayanilla. It is bordered on the west by the estuary of the Yauco River and on the south by Guayanilla Bay. Extensive mangrove forests and plam trees lie on the east and a huge wetland area to the north side floods whenever heavy rains inundate the Yauco River. Barrio Rufina was created in 1935 from portions o f Barrio Indios and the urban section o f the municipality. It only measures 1.81 mi2 and, according to the 1990 population census, contains only 223 inhabitants. This figure makes it the least populated rural district o f Guayanilla. At the time o f my fieldwork in 1997, El Faro consisted of eighty six families who lived in very small


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Barrio Rufina was originally settled by some forty or fifty families whose members were sharecroppers employed by Central Rufina and who lived on lands owned by Mario Mercado. They did not pay rent for the land or houses and received salaries for their work in the sugarcane fields and the centrifixgues. In contrast to Playa de Guayanilla, in El Faro home and road construction did not entail the deforestation o f the mangrove forests. As a sugarcane workers’ settlement, the community was “planned” by the administrators o f Central Rufina. Today it is nearly impossible for local residents to expand community boundaries because they are constrained by the coastline, the Yauco River and the wetlands. Houses constructed near these natural zones would risk destruction by flood. Not surprisingly, the few houses that have been built recently are located on the northeast side o f the community alongside the road, far from both the shoreline and the wetlands on the east side o f the Yauco River estuary. Unlike in Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion, fishing in El Faro has always been a marginal productive activity that local residents engage in only to supplement their diets. In the words o f a foreman at Central Rufina, most local residents have never fished on a commercial basis and the ones who did so gave a large portion o f the catches to their friends or consumed them at home. Furthermore, residents from El Faro have always depended on incomes obtained from harvesting and processing sugarcane. When the sugarcane economy collapsed, many found employment in the town or moved to other municipalities where they could find jobs in newly established industries. In fact, only a few residents with whom I spoke in 1997 consider El Faro to be a fishing community. Although the beachfront is dotted with as many as thirty fishing boats, for the most part the owners live in other barrios or nearby municipalities. This situation challenges


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anthropological representations that construct definitions o f

‘traditional fishing

communities” based solely on geographic location (see, for instance, Lucca Irrizary 1981:24). The case o f El Faro demonstrates that rigid definitions o f traditional fishing communities are problematic because they do not account for the fact that fishermen often fish and live in different places. Similarly, a definition that relies on the pursuit o f fishing as the primary economic activity also misrepresents the rural economy in coastal regions because it overlooks the fact that fishermen generally find employment opportunities in agricultural or industrial jobs in order to supplement their household incomes.

Table 4.3 Population data for Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, selected years

Barrios Playa

Area in 1910 _;2 mi .51 467 ------

Encarnacionb

El Faro

1.81

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990“

909

1287

1635

1704

1471

1262

------

459

1327

1429

1838

1154

1261

799

567

415

232

223

Adapted from Otto Sievens Irrizary. Guayanilla: Notas para su historia, 1983:82. a The 1990 data are from the United States Census Bureau. b The census data for Encamacion is from an undated leaflet published by the Pefluelas Cultural Center.


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The transformation o f traditional fishing practices in southern Puerto Rico The differences between the three fishing communities will be further explored in the next chapter. In this section, I will discuss the transformation o f traditional fishing practices and contend that similarities in fishing technologies employed by local fishermen facilitated the introduction of fisheries modernization programs in the region. During the 1940s and 1950s, fishing was an important source o f employment for local fishermen. According to some estimates, Playa de Guayanilla alone contained more than sixty fishermen working either on a full-time or part-time basis. Fish and other marine species were abundant and fishermen did not have to venture far offshore because they could have a good catch along the shoreline. As some fishermen told me, crabs were easily found in the posts holding their houses and oysters could be trapped in the wetlands and mangrove forests along the river estuaries. Although the fisheries included a great variety o f species with high commercial value such as groupers, snappers, red hinds, jacks and yellowtails, the fishing technologies available were not adequate to make large catches. As a result the productivity of the local fisheries was insufficient to meet the demand for fresh fish in the region. Until the federal and national governments implemented the first fisheries development programs in the 1940s, the fisheries o f Guayanilla and Penuelas fulfilled the criteria o f artisanal fishing offered by McGoodwin (1990:9) as being characterized by “fisher-artisans who fabricate much o f their own gear.” The majority o f local fishermen constructed their own boats and fishing gear using inexpensive materials while others paid an artisan living in their communities. The fishing vessel most commonly used was the skiff, a small boat that measured between fourteen and sixteen feet in length. These boats were predominantly flat-bottomed and had


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a narrow stem between one and one and a half feet wide that allowed the fishermen to row them in the shallow waters o f the bays. The fishermen constructed them from trees that grew around their communities or from discarded wood and materials that they found locally and could repair easily. Only occasionally did the fishermen buy materials in places outside their communities. In general, the fishing vessels were made from the same kinds o f wood and materials that fishermen used to construct their small wooden houses. According to some fishermen, constructing the vessels did not take long but they were very careful in caulking (calafatear) the vessel with estopa (burlap), and a homemade glue they prepared from mixing water with flour. The fishermen applied it to the frame and let the vessel dry for several days, making sure that it was not overexposed to sunlight, which could cause the frame to crack. When this happened, they repeated the process. Only when the vessel was properly dried did the fishermen paint it with sparkling combinations o f colors. During the 1930s and early 1940s most vessels were propelled with oars and sails. The fishermen then learned to modify the boats by installing outboard motors that they initially prepared from parts and engines used in other types o f machinery. Subsequently these were replaced with motors purchased in agricultural and sport shops. Although some local fishermen were already using motors when the Puerto Rican and municipal governments introduced them into the region, it was not until the 1960s that the majority acquired them through government programs. As I pointed out earlier, the Puerto Rican Department o f Agriculture’s Fisheries Office, and later CODREMAR, facilitated the acquisition o f low-interest loans that allowed fishermen to upgrade existing fishing technologies. One fisherman from Playa de Guayanilla recalled that the first motors


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introduced in his community had very low propelling capacity, an average o f six horse power, and many fishermen confronted serious economic hardships to repay the government-approved loans. A great number o f fishermen were unable to repay the loans promptly, leading governments to discontinue momentarily the program in the region. This retarded small-scale fisheries modernization in the region. The situation with fishing gear was different because the governments’ programs did not alter the fishing technologies available in a dramatic way. They only facilitated the fishermen’s acquisition o f new gear or, alternately, their acquisition o f improved materials with which to construct it. The fishermen have always used the same fishing gear and, as happened with the acquisition o f motors, they were already experimenting with new materials even before governments introduced them into the region. For example, in the 1950s local fishermen started to replace cotton nets and lines with nylon, a new material that a merchant from nearby Ponce first introduced in the late 1940s. It is likely that when governments introduced nylon nets and lines they were adapting their programs to preexisting demand. In contrast to expensive motors, nylon was rather cheap and found in stores throughout the region. A similar situation occurred in the case o f materials used to manufacture fish pots, the fishing gear most commonly used during the 1940s. Fishermen initially constructed the pot’s frame from mangrove trees that grew alongside the estuaries, rivers and the shoreline and wove the mesh from cotton thread. The fish pots were designed as a huge rectangular box that contained a large opening on one side that allowed fish to enter and, once inside, it was tightly closed. They also had a buoy on top that indicated their exact location, and a weight in the bottom to keep them underwater. Due to the fact that fish


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pots were constantly used and left underwater for several consecutive days, they deteriorated rather easily after prolonged use. In order to avoid fish pots’ deterioration, fishermen found it more conveninent to construct them using iron and chicken wire. Like nylon, chicken wire was cheap and available. It was not necessary to have large amounts o f money or acquire loans in order to purchase any o f these materials. In fact, most fishing gear used by local fishermen could be easily manufactured from inexpensive materials. All net and line types were manufactured from nylon. The haul seines were the nets most extensively used in the 1940s. They measured approximately 200 yards and were used by two groups o f fishermen divided as follows: a group o f three fishermen went out to the sea and laid the net vertically in the water while another group o f three fishermen remained onshore and pulled it. Haul seines were used until the early 1980s at which point became increasingly difficult to form the larger fishing crews required to operate them; also fishermen could not always pay for a new haul seine or repairs to the one they had. Other types o f nets included gill nets, trammel nets and cast nets. Gill nets consist of a single wall o f netting weighed at the bottom and supported at the top by floats attached to a headrope that allows it to hang vertically in the water. It is commonly used to catch bottom, surface and midwater fish species. Trammel nets consist of three walls o f netting in which a fine-meshed inner net is enveloped between two outer walls o f large-meshed netting. The three sheets are attached to floats and weighed at the bottom to keep the net hanging vertically in the water. When using gill nets, most fish species become wedged within a single mesh o f net whereas in trammel nets they are caught when they get entangled in one of the loose meshes (see Valdes Pizzini, Acosta, Griffith and Ruiz Perez 1992:52-56). Hand lines and troll lines used to


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catch demersal fish were also made o f nylon. Finally, during the 1950s diving began to be practiced by some fishermen from Encamacion but at that time it was very hard to find a place to fill the tanks. During the 1940s and 1950s the rudimentary nature o f the fishing gear coupled with limited propulsion capacity o f the fishing motors restricted most fishing operations to inshore areas. But since fish were abundant fishermen did not have to fish for long or go farther offshore in order to catch a good amount o f fish. Fish distribution and marketing was also carried out using very rudimentary techniques. The majority o f fishermen sold the catches to fish peddlers who walked on foot carrying poles on their shoulders or rode bicycles and horses in coastal areas with no refrigeration facilities to keep the fish fresh. Since both fishermen and fish peddlers lacked refrigeration facilities, and transportation facilities to move the catches from place to place in the region were undeveloped, they used to sell them in the beachfront as soon as they returned to the community. Only a few middlemen owned stores with refrigeration facilities and some fishermen sold the catches there. Like fish peddlers, the middlemen purchased the pound o f fish at about five or six cents and sold them at fifteen or eighteen cents. Fish dealers and middlemen also leased fishing gear and equipment to various local fishermen that allowed the latter to conduct fish excursions. The fishermen’s complaints were not enough to challenge middlemen’s control o f fish production and marketing. Slowly but firmly fishermen started to break the middlemen’s power when they acquired the means o f production to conduct fishing excursions on their own. In the late 1930s and early 1940s there were about eight middlemen in Playa de Guayanilla but only three controlled fresh fish maketing in the region. They were able to


149

control production and marketing processes because they owned fishing vessels and gear and subsidized the fishing excursions o f some commercial fishermen. The middlemen, who also owned the stores where fishermen bought daily products such as sugar, oil and foodstuffs, gave them thirty five cents to buy the food provisions consumed during the fishing trips and at the end o f the working day paid them two or three dollars. Moreover, middlemen were able to control the entire process because they also owned the few cars and trucks used to market the catches outside the region. The manner in which fishermen were tied to middlemen seemed to have been repeated in other Puerto Rican fishing communities at the time, as Valdes Pizzini (1985) has documented for the fishery o f Puerto de la Corona. Like in Puerto de la Corona, fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion were able to challenge middlemen’s power only when they began to purchase their own fishing vessels and gear and market the catches on their own. I was told that in the late 1940s local fishermen began to acquire fishing vessels and gear by savings accrued working in both fishing and the sugar mills. In the early 1960s, when the Puerto Rican government implemented the Program for Minimum Facilities in Fishing Villages, fishermen became increasingly dependent on the economic and institutional assistance provided by government agencies. Up until then, fishermen had fished and marketed their catches independently. During the early 1970s, the Agency for Community Action built in Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion a fish house, a dock where fishermen could land their catches and lockers to keep fishing gear in a secure place; the project benefitted some thirty fishermen (see Suarez Caabro 1979:9899). Both fish houses were originally administered by fishermen themselves and the municipal governments paid for water and electricity bills. In El Faro, however, the


150

governments did not build any infrastructure because local fishermen could use the facilites available in Playa de Guayanilla. In the mid 1970s, the Fishermen’s Associations Brisas del Caribe and Santo Cristo de la Salud were founded in Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion, respectively, with the help of the Agency for Community Action, which also provided larger vessels that allowed fishermen to make longer trips and spend more time fishing offshore. By the late 1970s thirty-five fishermen belonged to Brisas del Caribe and twelve fishermen to Santo Cristo de la Salud (see Lucca Irizarry 1981:135-137). The productivity o f the local fisheries increased dramatically during the late 1970s as a result o f the improvements in the facilities that the Puerto Rican government constructed in the early 1960s. Nevertheless, by the early 1980s local fisheries suffered a serious setback when both fishermen’s associations reported funds’ mismanagement. In the case o f Playa de Guayanilla, the situation coincided with the rise o f political tensions among members o f the fishermen’s association, while in Encamacion the situation was rapidly tackled by both fishermen and the municipal administrators. Though the fish house remained closed for a short while in the early 1980s, the fishermen’s association in Playa de Guayanilla was never able to recover. The fishermen from Encamacion maintained their commitment to the association and travelled many times to the capital city of San Juan in order to meet with government agents. In contrast, when Brisas del Caribe was eliminated in the early 1980s, a group o f fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla joined Encamacion’s Santo Cristo de la Salud and later founded a new association in their community. The new association seemed to have lasted only a few years, probably until 1986, and since then local fishermen have lacked an association that can help them conduct fishing activities satisfactorily.14


151 Various explanations have been given for the elimination of the Fishermen’s Association Brisas del Caribe in the mid-1980s, some with more veritable precision than others. On one hand, Lucca Irizarry (1981:135-137) has argued that a short time after the Agency for Community Action gave a fifty one feet long vessel in the late 1970s to the local fishermen, a crew disappeared while fishing the waters close to the Dominican Republic. Since then many fishermen have lost interest in venturing offshore. On the other hand, some fishermen told me that the fishermen’s association was eliminated because the fish house was operating at a loss. During an interview the last president o f the association pointed out that some members decided to sell the catches to middlemen or restaurants where they could get higher prices. Apparently, this situation became commonplace to the extent that the fish house was not supplied adequately and the association was thus unable to repay a debt o f approximately $14,000 that it had contracted with CODREMAR, the government agency that replaced the Agency for Community Action in 1979. Fund mismanagement also created much skepticism about the benefits that fishermen were supposed to receive by becoming members o f the association, and many refused to pay the required dues although everyone, even those who refused to contribute, wanted to enjoy the benefits. Finally, another group o f fishermen suggested that a Cuban fisherman with limited knowledge o f local affairs may have provoked the association’s demise when he “turned the fish house into his own home.”15 It is likely that this happened when the fish house was already experiencing losses or operating at a reduced capacity. The Cuban fisherman might have been used as a scapegoat to avoid larger and more complicated political issues. To me this case reveals the existence o f political tensions and conflicts


152 among fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla which divided residents from Villa del Carmen on one side and those from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez on another. The political subtleties o f the fishermen’s discourse surfaced in at least two meetings that I coordinated with local fishermen and representatives from the Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources and the University o f Puerto Rico Sea Grant College Program.16 Most fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez are supporters o f the New Progressive Party, the pro-statehood party that was in power at the time o f the field research both in Guayanilla and Puerto Rico, while the fishermen from Villa del Carmen support the pro-Commonwealth Popular Democratic Party. These two political parties have dominated modem political processes in Puerto Rico, and it is not uncommon to find harsh disputes between supporters and detractors o f each. The fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez blamed the Cuban fisherman, a resident o f Villa del Carmen, for the elimination o f the local fishermen’s association. Their comments and accusations give the impression that all fishermen from Villa del Carmen, and not only the Cuban fisherman, were responsible for the downfall o f the association. Political disputes and tensions among commercial fishermen have been mentioned by Gutierrez Sanchez, McCay and Valdes Pizzini (1987) as a major problem that must be overcome in order to promote the organization and maintenance of successful fishermen’s associations in Puerto Rico. The politization o f commercial fishermen, which is only a reflection o f the politization of Puerto Rican society, can be detrimental if associations are not used wisely to promote the socio-political interests of small-scale fishermen. In other words, a poorly administered association is worse than


153

having no association at all. In addition, Gutierrez Sanchez, McCay and Valdes Pizzini (1987) found that distrust and skepticism regarding the benefits that fishermen might receive from the association are common obstacles to organize successful fishermen’s associations. In a survey conducted during the early 1980s, Gutierrez Sanchez, McCay and Valdes Pizzini (1987) found that mismanagement o f the fishermen’s association funds, as well as distrust o f the association’s goals and objectives, were significant factors that helped explain why so many fishermen’s association have failed to enhance the productivity o f the local fisheries and the socio-economic conditions of fishermen. The elimination o f the Fishermen’s Association Brisas del Caribe, and the conclusions o f the Gutierrez Sanchez, McCay and Valdes Pizzini (1987) report, seem to lend support to the suggestion made earlier by Suarez Caabro (1979:117) when he argued that many fishermen’s associations are not run adequately and may diminish the productive capacity o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries.

Conclusions and recapitulation The elimination o f the Fishermen’s Association Brisas del Caribe can be seen as an example of the contradictory situation o f small-scale fishing in Puerto Rico. It was created by the Puerto Rican government as an organization with the object of uniting the fishermen around goals and interests they apparently shared but it only helped to exacerbate the differences and political tensions among them. The elimination o f the fishermen’s association might have also failed to unite fishermen because it attempted to conceal their political disparities under the rhetoric o f fisheries modernization. The goals o f modernization programs appeared to fishermen as unattainable as fish stocks being


154

reproduced ten miles from their communities. In Playa de Guayanilla not all fishermen joined the association because many believed that it would limit their independence. This group of fishermen perceived the association as running counter to their interests and resisted subsumption in the artificial collective identity that fishery agents tried to impose upon them. The elimination o f the local fishermen’s association is more complicated and has to be explained in light o f the rise o f political tensions among certain groups o f fishermen in San Pedro de Macoris, Honradez and Villa del Carmen. Although the Commonwealth and municipal governments failed because they disregarded existing political ambiguities in the community, it is also true that local fishermen failed to take advantage o f many benefits that the association offered. This situation is better understood when we compare the events that occurred in Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion. In the latter community, for example, there were fewer fishermen and it seemed possible to organize them more easily in an association than in Playa de Guayanilla. The fishermen’s success in keeping the local association operating satisfactorily seems to be related to their capacity to reduce political tensions or at least to prevent them from rising to unbearable proportions. It would thus be unjust to point to government intervention as the sole culprit for the decline o f small-scale fishing in the region. Although the creation o f the fishermen’s associations as political bodies to organize fishermen around goals they apparently shared was revealed as naive, it is true that it also contributed to improve the socio-economic well being of some groups o f small-scale commercial fishermen in the region. As many fishermen now assert, governments’ economic and institutional assitance have been valuable and the fishermen should also bear the burden for letting it vanish.


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The comparison of the two

fishermen’s associations also points to a

reconsideration o f the governments’ role in the promotion o f fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico. As many government agents now acknowledge, continued economic and institutional support that the state provides to fishermen has encourage their dependence on government assistance and reduced their ability to successfully run independent enterprises. In this chapter, I have demonstrated that when the Puerto Rican government started to promote fisheries modernization in the region local fishermen were already experimenting with new materials and fishing techniques. Although they were initially tied to the demands o f middlemen, who subsidized fishing excursions and controlled fish production and marketing, fishermen were able to break middlemen’s control and power and acquire their own fishing vessels and gear. It is my contention that increased government intervention in the affairs o f local fishing communities also retarded fisheries modernization by reducing fishermen’s opportunities to accumulate capital. The transformation of traditional fishing practices in the region was a response to middlemen’s control o f fish production and marketing, a goal that accelerated state intervention beginning in the late 1940s. This seemed to be a common situtation in southern Puerto Rico and other regions where national governments have assumed responsibility for modernizing local fisheries by reducing middlemen’s influence in fish production and marketing processes (see Gordon 1981, Howell 1995, Valdes Pizzini 1985). The maritime anthropological literature generally (mis)represents the role o f middlemen and merchant capitalists in capitalist promotion and development among rural laborers as counterproductive. Only in a few instances are middlemen regarded as major agents o f economic change who can positively contribute to capitalist development, as


1S6

Antler (1982) has demonstrated in her historical analysis o f capitalist development in Newfoundland fisheries and Cook and Binford (1990) recently argued in relation to rural peasant-artisan production in the Oaxaca Valley o f Mexico. In the fieldwork that I conducted none o f the small-scale fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion negatively represented middlemen and fish vendors. For example, when I asked about the local middlemen’s control o f the means o f production and fish marketing, they replied, much to my surprise, that middlemen are humble people who helped them solve their most immediate economic needs. They also said that middlemen and fish vendors had to make their own profits. However, they did not mention that such apparent benevolence was precisely the manner in which control and power between fishermen and middlemen was reproduced. Not many middlemen and independent fish vendors currently exist in the region, as they became redundant once the Puerto Rican government started to reduce their control over small-scale fishing production. As I will discuss in the next chapter, nowadays fishermen in southern Puerto Rico have learned to create their own outlets to market more successfully their catches. The current conditions o f small-scale commercial fishing have improved very little even though state intervention has been consistent with the modernization programs implemented elsewhere in Puerto Rico.


157


1. The submarine pipeline, which cost $35 million, was finally inaugurated on December 3, 1999. Its construction, which began in 1995, created much controversy because dynamite was used to remove underwater rocks and sediments. However, it is hoped that the pipeline will help reduce the loss o f local marine life because it will discharge used waters four miles from the Ponce coastline. Eco-Electrica has initiated operations at a limited pace and some parts of the project are still under construction. TTie Puerto Rican government expects that Eco-Electrica will start full operations by the year 2001. 2.

Interview conducted on September 25,1997.

3. The 1990 population numbers are from the United States Census Bureau. The estimates for 1997 were downloaded from the Internet. The report, Estimates of the Population o f Puerto Rico Municipios, July 1, 1997, and Demographic Components o f Population Change: April 1, 1990 to July 1, 1997, can be found at www.census.gov/population/estimates/puerto-rico/prmunnet.txt. 4.

A cuerda is approximately .9712 acre.

5.

The unemployment figures were downloaded from the Internet and based on the data provided by the following documents: Unemployment Rate: Guayanilla Municipio, Puerto Rico; NSA and Unemployment Rate: Penuelas Municipio, Puerto Rico; NSA. Both documents can be found at www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/BLSLA.

6. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has banned four o f the pesticides used by Tropical Fruit in the island: Malathion, Supracide-2E, Captan 50 and DITHANE F-45. Residents from Barrio Boca have developed pulmonary conditions, like asthma and bronchitis, allergies and skin irritation due to exposure to pesticides. In 1997, the United States Environmental Protection Agency filed a case against Tropical Fruit on behalf o f local residents. For additional information on this case, see the newspaper articles Complacidos con orden de EPA and Inflexible la EPA con la Tropical Fruit, by Del Toro (1997), in La Estrella de Puerto Rico. 7. Bocoyes were wooden barrels used to export sugar for processing in Europe. They were also used to separate sugar crystals from molasses by allowing the latter to drain out through the holes in the bottom and sides o f the bocoyes, thus leaving the crude brown moscaba sugar inside. For a detailed description o f this process, see Ramos Mattei 1981:78 and Ramos Mattei 1988:59-60.


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8. From February 29, 1756 to February 27, 1833 Guayanilla was a rural district o f Yauco. As a rural district, it contributed more than half the finances destined to Yauco; when its residents realized the magnitude o f their contribution, they decided to found a separate municipality. 9. Ramos Mattei (1981:22-23) stated that, during the last quarter of the 19th century, only a few sugarcane haciendas operated with steam engines. The crisis o f the Puerto Rican sugar economy during this period made it difficult for hacendados to acquire more advanced technological equipment in order to accelerate and improve sugar production. There were some attempts during this time to turn the haciendas into sugar mills, but hacendados lacked sufficient capital to modernize sugarcane production. According to Ramos Mattei, the first attempt to centralize sugarcane production occurred in Guayanilla in 1842, when Juan Ducos, Juan B. Lacroix and Jose Moringlane bought machinery from a French company. Their attempt failed due to low levels o f production (see Ramos Mattei 1981:21-22 and Ramos Mattei 1988:29). 10. The acquisition o f land formerly controlled by hacendados, together with mechanization and centralization of sugarcane production, contributed to the emergence of sugar mills as the predominant form o f economic production in Puerto Rico at the beginning o f the 20 century. Concentration o f land in a few powerful sugar estates resulted in the loss o f land ownership by the rural coastal laborers. 11. Jose Piza Trujillo and Mario Mercado founded Central Rufina in 1901. In 1916, Trujillo Piza sold his share to Mercado, who remained the sole owner until it ceased to operate in 1968. 12. Although local fishermen also identify other sections o f the community with various names -sections that in fact are named for the main street that crosses them- in this study I use the three names mentioned in the text. When Nydia Lucca Irizarry conducted field research in the late 1970s, she identified at least two additional sections (Agua Dulce and Playa 1) besides the three sections that I identify here (see Lucca Irizarry 1981:127). Agua Dulce and Playa 1, however, were not mentioned to me during the time I conducted fieldwork in Playa de Guayanilla. 13. Interview conducted on September 29, 1997. 14. Although I was unable to find the exact date when the Puerto Rican government eliminated the Fishermen’s Association Brisas del Caribe, a report submitted to the Economic Development Administration o f the United States Department o f Commerce revealed that in 1986 it was no longer operating. However, it was reported that the fish house was still in operation and its work classified by the Economic Development Administration as adequate. Apparently, the fishermen’s association was eliminated around April 1986, about four months before the Economic Development Administration conducted a survey in Playa de Guayanilla (see Romaguera, Dones Molina and Vega 1987: Appendix A-20).


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15. Interview conducted on September 25, 1997. 16. The first meeting, on June 28, 1997, was held in order to discuss various problems confronted by fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, such as delays in the receipt o f fishing licenses. The second meeting, on October 8, 1997, dealt with the problems created by continued misuse of jet skis near fishing areas in Guayanilla Bay. The fishermen made it clear that they did not oppose the use of jet skis, only that they should be restricted to certain areas where they do not interfere with fishing excursions. I coordinated both meetings with the support o f the Community Outreach Director of the University o f Puerto Rico Sea Grant College Program.


CHAPTER 5

Precarious livelihoods: Household economy and the conditions of small-scale fishing in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnaci6n

*

E geralmente com surpresa que os etno logos descobrem que para alcancar seus objetos de estudo tem que fazer uma viagem!

Roberto DaMatta, 1993:41

The quest for small-scale commercial fishermen It is commonplace to argue that gaining access to research sites is one o f the most complicated matters o f conducting ethnographic fieldwork. The Fisheries Research Laboratory’s agent who collects the fisheries statistics in the region under study facilitated my entrance into the communities by introducing me to the local fishermen. The fact that he introduced me to them, however, took on some unexpected and contradictory twists. For example, local fishermen either accepted my presence in their communities as they got used to see me wandering around the streets every day or were suspicious o f my goals and refrained from prolonged contacts with me. Although local fishermen are accustomed to seeing strange people coming to the beach or restaurants

160


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they are not always annoyed by someone who asks insistently about their lives and work experiences. For good or bad, that is the unavoidable task o f the anthropologist, an insistent search that Auge (1998) has appropriately called “a sense for the other.” When the local fishermen became aware that I was interested in knowing more about fishing some o f them considered that I was going to help them get the licenses required to conduct fishing operations in Puerto Rico or prohibit the use o f jet ski in areas close to the fishing zones in Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. As it turned out, these were the two most vexing problems that local fishermen have had to put up with during the past few years. For them, I was not a student incessantly following their moves and inquiring about their life histories; instead, I was another government official sent to their communities to somehow help mitigate their problems. For another group of fishermen, I was also a new government official but o f a very different kind. For this group, I was a stranger with very limited knowledge about their communities and would report violations o f existing fishing laws to the authorities responsible for enforcing them. The two groups o f fishermen invariably regarded me as an outsider with connections to government bureaucracies whose mission was somehow related to the administration and management o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries. But while the first group o f fishermen regarded me as a trustful person, the other was not so welcoming and tried to keep me at bay. However, it is necessary to point out that mistrust or lack o f confidence occurred very rarely, and my fieldwork in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion proceeded without significant complications. Perhaps without knowing it, the relationship that I established with the fishery agent helped legitimize my research among small-scale fishermen in the region.


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When he first introduced me to Don Luis in the afternoon o f January 22, 1997, I had not clearly envisioned a research design to investigate the current conditions o f small-scale fishing in southern Puerto Rico. Neither had I conceptualized the research setting as a region in order to include El Faro and Encamacion, as I later did. Before meeting Don Luis, I had just finished gathering some historical data about fisheries modernization in Puerto Rico and begun to look for possible ways to incorporate Playa de Guayanilla theoretically and conceptually into the historical background of discontinuous fisheries development in Puerto Rico. Although I had visited Playa de Guayanilla a few times before meeting Don Luis, I had not talked informally with the local fishermen nor visited them at home. But since then I have spent a lot o f time with them, especially in the beachfront and on the basketball court in front o f Don Luis’ house. Whenever I visited him I always found a group o f fishermen and other community residents socializing amicably and talking about the everyday events. A few weeks later the fishery agent also introduced me to the fishermen from Encamacion; only in El Faro did I contact the fishermen on my own. Encamacion is a community o f full-time commercial fishermen fully supported by the Puerto Rican and municipal governments since the early 1960s. It boasts a wellorganized fish house that supplies much o f the demand for fresh fish in the region as well as a fishermen’s association that provides them with a steady (although still insufficient) source of income. Their economic success also derives from the role that the fishermen’s association plays in securing various types o f economic and institutional support from both the Commonwealth and municipal governments. For example, the municipal government pays for electricity and water and repairs the building where the fish house is


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located and the piers where fishermen land their catches. Also, the Commonwealth government offers the fishermen’s association the opportunity to increase productivity, as when it gave the association two SI-foot fishing vessels, and allowed local fishermen to acquire new fishing technologies or upgrade the ones they already own. In essence, the economic success o f fishermen from Encamacion is a consequence o f their capacity to maintain production at satisfactory levels. In Playa de Guayanilla the situation is much m ore complicated because it exhibits the characteristics o f a fishing community in continuous deterioration and decay. Until the mid-1980s, when the fishermen’s association was still functioning, Playa de Guayanilla was a thriving fishing community supported by the Commonwealth and municipal governments. Since the elimination o f the fishermen’s association, the local fishing economy has followed a downward trend forcing fishermen to scratch out a living from multiple jobs. At the time when I conducted fieldwork, the local population comprised a mixture o f full-time and part-time fishermen whose livelihood was greatly subsidized by federal and Commonwealth governments’ social and economic programs. Most fishermen that I interviewed are old, have a very low educational background and lack necessary skills to find steady employment outside fishing. In fact, approximately 60% o f fishermen’s households in this community rely on a combination o f income sources

that

include

fishing,

economic transfers

from

both the

federal

and

Commonwealth governments, and odd jobs that do not provide substantial amounts o f money. In contrast to fishermen from Encamacion, in Playa de Guayanilla fishermen depend more heavily on a variety of labor strategies in order to supplement their household incomes.


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Lastly, El Faro remains an isolated community o f non-commercial fishermen that has never been directly exposed to fisheries modernization programs. As a result, the social organization o f fishing differs sharply from those observed in Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion. El Faro is the community with the smallest number o f residents and local fishermen do not rely on commercial fishing as a significant source o f income. In the previous chapter I explained that El Faro was originally a settlement o f sugarcane workers and sharecroppers who never engaged in commercial fishing and who found employment in the municipal town or in municipalities far away from home when sugarcane production in the region diminished. In fact, none of the fishermen I interviewed considered themselves or their neighbors to be commercial fishermen. They asserted that they fish very infrequently and use the catches for home consumption or give them to relatives and friends. The non-commercial nature o f small-scale fishing in El Faro, therefore, introduces a key element that distinguishes it from both Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion. Earlier I explained that the three communities share a common history o f rural agricultural development that depended heavily on intensive cultivation o f sugarcane for export to international markets and rapid industrial development o f the coastal landscapes based on manufacture o f petrochemical products and oil refineries. As a result o f nearby economic development projects, local fishermen have experienced the effects o f continuous degradation o f coastal environments and the depletion o f some major fish stocks. I have also demonstrated that the transformation o f traditional fishing practices in the region has led to different outcomes. For example, the current economic conditions o f fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla are worse than ever and most local


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fishermen are unable to resume small-scale commercial fishing. An evaluation o f current conditions o f fishing shows that the contribution that fishing makes to the reproduction of their household economy has diminished dramatically in the past two decades. This is coupled to the fact that the contribution o f both agriculture and industrialization has also decreased recently. As I shall explain in this chapter, the majority o f fishermen’s households studied rely heavily on various job combinations that permit the simple reproduction o f the household economy (see Cook and Binford 1990). This chapter presents an analysis o f current aspects of small-scale fishing in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion. It is based on data gathered through a demographic household survey with fifty fishermen living in the three fishing communities. Only three fishermen, all o f them living in El Faro, did not fish commercially. The household survey was designed with the goal o f collecting quantitative data about the demographic composition of the fishermen’s households by focusing on the contribution that fishing makes to the reproduction o f the household economy. Given the overwhelmingly high proportion o f households sampled in Playa de Guayanilla, comparisons between the three communities must be made based on ethnographic data. The samples taken in El Faro and Encamacion are representative of these communities only. A major goal will be to demonstrate that economic success of the fishermen’s households is not a result o f their demographic composition but o f their capacity to pull economic resources from various income sources available to them. Investments to improve existing fishing technologies still are very small. I will argue that those fishermen’s households more capable o f upgrading fishing technologies and finding marketing outlets to sell their catches perform more successful fishing operations.


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Dilemmas confronted to administer the household survey From February to October o f 19971 I conducted a survey o f fifty fishermen’s households distributed as follows: forty-three households were surveyed in Playa de Guayanilla, four households were surveyed in Encamacion2 and only three households in El Faro. The disparity in the number o f households surveyed in each community was a consequence o f the methodological limitations o f the survey design and, more significantly, the conditions encountered in the field sites. For instance, in Playa de Guayanilla, the community where the largest number o f fishermen lives, it took more time than expected to contact them because households are scattered throughout the three sections that comprise the community, namely, San Pedro de M acons, Honradez and Villa del Carmen. Although the community has the form o f a compact cluster o f houses separated only by narrow roads and fences, fishermen were not always available when I visited their houses and thus I had to alter the interview schedule in more than one occasion. Moreover, I was initially confused about the total number o f fishermen living in the community because I had been told that most residents are fishermen (according to some estimates, there are approximately one hundred and forty five fishermen!). When I noticed some important differences in the organization o f production between fishermen from San Pedro de Macons, Honradez and Villa del Carmen my confusion grew. Those differences will be discussed further below. Since I was interested in the current conditions o f commercial fisheries I did not include in the household survey those fishermen who consume the catches at home or give them away to friends and relatives; only those who fish in order to generate an income were included.


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In Playa de Guayanilla I confronted the dilemma o f either choosing a sample based on fishermen’s definitions of commercial fishing or using the list o f commercial fishermen that the Fisheries Research Laboratory prepares annually. For the purpose o f collecting fishery statistical data, the Fisheries Research Laboratory defines a full-time fisherman as someone who fish commercially forty hours or more per week and a parttime fisherman as someone who fishes commercially less than forty hours per week (see Matos Caraballo 1997a:2). It prepares the annual list from data gathered in every fishing town, but most data are o f limited use for analyzing current socio-economic fishing conditions in Puerto Rico. The list is based on the number o f fishermen who supply data about daily catches using the trip tickets system established in 1967 by the governments o f Puerto Rico and United States.3 However, due to the fact that not every fisherman reports data on daily catches, the list o f fishermen is incomplete. The data are unreliable because many fishermen fill out the trip tickets several hours and even several days after they have landed the catches, and are thus often unable to recall the exact amount o f fish landed daily. Since fishery agents collect the trip tickets every two weeks, fishermen can report them with some delay. In a cogent critique o f fishery statistics data collection procedures, Yvan Breton and Daniel Lopez Estrada (1989:92-103) have argued that relying on “official” lists and reports that government agencies prepare might render a partial and incomplete portrayal o f small-scale fishing. It is thus necessary to design alternative methodologies that can better help to grasp complex relationships between fishing communities and government agencies. For Breton and Lopez Estrada (1989), ethnographic research techniques, with their emphasis on prolonged periods o f fieldwork aimed at eliciting local cultural


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descriptions and texts, provide the opportunity to broaden the partial descriptions that government reports generally offer. Conducting ethnographic fieldwork is a more reliable research technique because it can provide systematic data about the conditions o f smallscale fishing not commonly reported in statistical reports. However, I will also argue that ethnographic fieldwork should not be considered an infallible research methodology that somehow helps disclose the meanings of local cultural texts. As I discussed at the beginning o f this chapter, sometimes ethnographic fieldwork can lead to unexpected circumstances that may have serious implications for the analysis o f field data. Anthropologists have espoused a variety of arguments —informed by diverse theoretical and political persuasions— to justify the necessity to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in the present so-called post-modem era (see, for instance, Behar 1996, Breton and Lopez Estrada 1989, Comaroff 1992, Marcus 1998). All the cited authors share a sustained commitment to the epistemological grounding o f ethnographic research and writing. In order to circumvent some methodological limitations o f ethnographic fieldwork, I combined different methodologies with the goal o f creating a comprehensive sample of commercial fishermen’s households in the three communities studied. For example, in Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro I employed the snowball sampling technique while in Encamacion I relied on a modified version o f the most recent list o f commercial fishermen prepared by the Fisheries Research Laboratory. Bernard (1994:97) has noted that when dealing with a “relatively small population who are likely to be in contact with one another then snowball sampling is an effective way to build an exhaustive sampling frame.” In using the snowball sampling technique an informant directs the researcher to other informants who can be also interviewed; as each new


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informant recommends others the sampling frame increases. The snowball sampling technique produced some interesting results. In Playa de Guayanilla, the total number o f fishermen surveyed is almost equally divided into full-time (40%) and part-time fishermen (60%). On the other hand, the three fishermen interviewed in El Faro are retired workers who fish only as a hobby or therapy. Lastly, the Fisheries Research Laboratory reports that there are eighteen fishermen in Encamacion, all o f them members of the Fishermen’s Association Santo Cristo de la Salud. Although I originally planned to include all o f them in the sampling frame, only four fishermen agreed to be interviewed. The fishermen who refused to participate in the study were suspicious o f the research’s goals and usually avoided prolonged contacts with me. Whereas the list o f commercial fishermen obtained from the Fisheries Research Laboratory includes a total o f forty nine fishermen in the three communities (see Matos Caraballo 1997a: 13), the sampling frame that I created consists o f fifty fishermen, some o f whom are not included in the “official” list of the Laboratory. The household survey was divided into five parts and asked questions regarding the composition o f fishermen’s households; the fishermen’s life history; the possession and utilization o f vessels and fishing gear; fish marketing and consumption; and fishermen’s perceptions o f development. It was designed following the format o f two previous surveys conducted during the past two decades among commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico (see Gutierrez Sanchez 1985, Valdes Pizzini, Acosta, Griffith and Ruiz Perez 1992). While both surveys helped me identify the categories o f analysis and questions that needed to be asked I also feared that the household survey that I was going to conduct would turn to repeat the surveys conducted in the early 1980s and 1990s.


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Nevertheless, I also realized that the demographic household survey o f fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion must mirror the two previous surveys, especially because these communities have never before been studied systematically. In essence, the goal o f conducting the household survey was to create a socio-demographic and economic profile that would allow me to compare the current state of small-scale fishing in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion. But on what basis can a comparison o f small-scale fishing in the region be made? If, as I discussed earlier, the three communities have shared a common history o f rural agricultural development and been heavily impacted by rapid industrialization o f the coastal landscape, what is remarkably different about them? I will argue that they exhibit important differences in the structure and organization o f production as a result o f the introduction o f fisheries modernization programs in the region since the 1940s. Table 5.1 identifies the major differences between the three small-scale fishing communities that will be discussed in this chapter. The governments’ development programs transformed traditional fishing practices in Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion but only in the latter have those programs been maintained. Since the elimination o f the fishermen’s association in Playa de Guayanilla, local fishermen have been unable to satisfactorily increase production. As a result, they resort to various labor strategies in order to reproduce the household economy. El Faro is the only community that has not being impacted by fisheries modernization programs and thus diverges greatly from small-scale commercial fishing conditions observed elsewhere in the region. Since this chapter presents an analysis o f small-scale commercial fishing, this community will be mentioned only briefly. In summary, Encamacion is in the best position to promote sustainable fish


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production while both Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro are more affected by the economic decline o f the region.

T able 5.1 Major characteristics of small-scale fishing production in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion

Features

Playa de Guayanilla

El Faro

Encamacion

Commercial fishing

Full-time and part-time

No

Full-time only

Fishermen’s association

None

None

Yes

Fish house

Yesa

No

Yes

Government support

Yes

No

Yes

a In Playa de Guayanilla the fish house is not currently used by the local fishermen. The municipal government has approved some funding to repair it but it is not known when the fishermen will start using the new facilities.


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Household demographics, educational background and the occupational mix The household survey was designed to collect systematic data about the composition of fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion. Fishermen’s ages and education as well as household’s size were among the first demographic features collected and evaluated. Table 5.2 shows the mean age (52.80 years), educational level (7.38 grades) and household size (3.02 members) of the fifty fishermen’s households surveyed in the region. When we examine the three communities separately we find interesting tendencies (see Table 5.3). For example, in El Faro fishermen’s households show the highest mean age (67.67 years), highest educational background (11.33 grades) and smallest household size (2.33 members). These averages are clearly in accord with the non-commercial nature o f fishing in the community. Playa de Guayanilla is the community where fishermen’s households most closely approximate the mean age, educational background and household size o f the fifty fishermen’s households included in the sampling frame. The averages reflect the fact that it was also the community where I took the largest sample o f households, that is 86%. Close to 50% o f fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla are between fifty and sixty nine years o f age. Finally, fishermen from Encamacion are the youngest and have an educational background above the mean. It is also the community with the highest number o f members per household, a figure that is also above the mean for the sampling frame. Overall, the nuclear family predominates in each community, accounting for 80% o f the households surveyed, while the remaining 20% are examples o f extended family units composed o f two generations living together.


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Table 5.2 Mean age, educational level and household size for fifty fishermen’s households surveyed in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacidn

Age Number

Family size

Education %

Number

%

Number

%

0-29(1)

2

0-4(15)

30

0-4 (39)

78

30-39 (9)

18

5-9(17)

34

5-9(10)

20

40-49 (12)

24

10-14(17)

34

10-14(1)

2

50-59(11)

22

15-19(1)

2

60-69(12)

24

70-79(5)

10

N= 50

100

N= 50

100

N=50


100

174

Demographic data about the composition o f fishermen’s households across Puerto Rico is limited only to fishermen’s age. The Fisheries Research Laboratory does not collect data about the educational background or household size o f small-scale commercial fishermen. The failure o f the laboratory to collect these types o f data precludes a full comparison between the three fishing communities under study and others throughout the island. Only a brief comparison between the age o f Puerto Rico’s fishermen in general and the three fishing communities studied is possible. If we exclude the mean age o f three non-commercial fishermen sampled in El Faro, we can see that fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla are older and from Encamacion younger than in Puerto Rico as a whole. The most recent census data show that the mean age o f smallscale commercial fishermen in the island range from 44 years (on the eastern coast) to 49 years (on the northern coast). However, when the mean age is considered for every fishing community across the island, then Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion are within the limits o f the mean age in Puerto Rico. Patillas, on the southeast coast, is the municipality with the lowest mean age (38 years) while Manati, on the northern coast, shows the highest mean age, with 63 years (see Matos Caraballo 1997a:3-4).


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Table 5.3 Age, education and family size distribution for fifty fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacidn

Community

Age Number

%

Number

Family size %

Number

%

0-29 (0)

0

0-4(14)

33

0-4 (36)

84

30-39 (9)

21

5-9(17)

39

5-9(6)

14

40-49 (9)

21

10-14(12)

12

10-14(1)

2

50-59(11)

26

60-69 (10)

23

70-79 (4)

9

Playa de Guayanilla

Subtotal

Education

43 0-29(1)

25

0-4(1)

25

0-4(2)

50

30-39 (0)

0

5-9 (0)

0

5-9(2)

50

40-49 (3)

75

10-14(2)

50

15-19(1)

25

0-4(3)

100

50

100

El Faro

Subtotal

3

Encamacion

0-59 (0)

0

0-10(0)

0

60-69 (2)

67

10-14(3)

100

70-79(1)

33

50

100

Subtotal

4

Total

50

100


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Household data for Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion also confirm the widespread belief that small-scale commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico are among the social groups with the lowest educational backgrounds (see, for instance, Gutierrez Sanchez 1985:6-8, Valdes Pizzini 1992:10-12). The fishermen from El Faro (i.e., those who do not fish on a commercial basis) have the highest educational background o f all fishermen surveyed. The three non-commercial fishermen are retired workers who have held jobs as a truck driver, foreman at Central Rufina and industrial worker in a Johnson and Johnson plant in southeast Puerto Rico. In Playa de Guayanilla, age and education are directly related in another way, namely, the older the fishermen the more time they devote to fishing and the fewer opportunities they have to find jobs elsewhere. The relationship between age, education and labor strategies available in this community is explained by the fact that the elders lack educational background and skills to find jobs outside fishing, a situation that is less commonly found among younger fishermen in the same community. For example, twenty-six fishermen (60.47%) in Playa de Guayanilla are part-time fishermen while seventeen (39.53%) are full-time fishermen. The mean age o f part-time fishermen is 45.62 years and the mean age o f full-time fishermen is 64.12 years. In Encamacion, however, the relationship between age, education and labor strategies is reversed because the younger fishermen are the ones who fish full-time. Commercial fishermen there are primarily divers, a fishing technique that requires physical capabilities that older fishermen from both Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro lack. In essence, in Encamacion formal education is not a significant factor impinging upon the decision to fish full-time or part-time (see Figure 5.1).


177

Figure 5.1 Percentage of full-time, part-time and non commercial fishermen surveyed in 1997 Non comm ercial fisherm en 6%

Full-time fisherm en 42%

Part-tim e fisherm en 52%

In Playa de Guayanilla part-time fishermen engage in a variety o f semi-skilled and skilled jobs that include an upholsterer, electronic technician, janitor, painter, a foreman in one o f the local industries, and myriad odd jobs, or chiripas, as they are commonly known in Puerto Rico. The most common types o f chiripas available to local fishermen were as painters, carpenters and masons in several short-term construction projects going on in the community at the time o f my fieldwork (see Figure 5.2). Interestingly enough, agriculture was not among the productive activities available to any local fishermen. This finding, in fact, is in accordance to the trends observed in Puerto Rico since the 1950s, the decade when industrialization first supplanted agriculture as the main economic activity in coastal valleys. The contribution that agriculture makes to


178

household’s incomes all over Puerto Rico has greatly diminished. In the region under study, for example, none o f the fishermen included in the household survey was working for Tropical Fruit, the Israeli-owned corporation, nor for the heirs o f Mario Mercado who still cultivate fruits and vegetables in the outskirts o f Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro. The situation in Playa de Guayanilla thus lends support to the argument that small-scale commercial fishing in Puerto Rico also serves as a buffer against the dislocations created by industrial unemployment and fluctuations o f the capitalist economy (see Valdes Pizzini 1992:13-14).

Figure 5.2 Types of jobs available for twenty six part-time fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla

S to re k ee p er

4% U pholsterer

4% Technician 8% Industrial jobs 15 % d jobs

69%


179

The analysis o f household census data also reveals that the majority of household incomes in the three fishing communities depend heavily on economic transfers from the United States and Puerto Rican governments. Such transfers are distributed primarily in two forms: the Nutritional Assistance Program (NAP) and the Social Security. The Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly disbursed as food coupons and currently as checks, have been operational in United States since 1964 and extended to Puerto Rico in the mid-1970s with the intention to alleviate high poverty and unemployment rates (see W eisskoff 1985:60-64). Poverty and unemployment rates increased dramatically during the 1970s as a result o f the crisis o f the industrialization program that resulted from global economic recessions triggered by the downfall o f oil prices. Due to the fact that the southern coast o f Puerto Rico, and especially the region under study, was devoted to oil refining and the manufacture o f petroleum products, the three communities have received the direct impact o f industrial unemployment. O f the twenty-two fishermen’s households (44%) that receive benefits from the Nutritional Assistance Program, twentyone (95%) are located in Playa de Guayanilla. In El Faro none o f the three fishermen’s households receive benefits from the Nutritional Assistance Program while in Encamacion only one does. This is an extended household formed by six family members and partly supported by the salary o f the fisherman’s wife who works in a local garment factory. On the other hand, some fishermen’s households rely more heavily on Social Security benefits in order to supplement the incomes. In Playa de Guayanilla alone, thirteen households (30%) receive Social Security benefits and more than half are located in Villa del Carmen. This is an interesting pattern because fishermen’s households in this


180

section o f the community showed the indicators generally associated with more economically independent activities. On the other hand, for the three fishermen’s households surveyed in El Faro, with a mean age of 67 years, Social Security benefits are the major source o f income. In Encamacion, only one fisherman’s household benefits from the Social Security system. This is a household where the fisherman still lives with his parents and is also supported partially by the incomes o f his daughter and son-in-law. Fishing plays a less significant role because the household has various economic alternatives to it. In fact, when questioned as to why he fishes, the fisherman responded that there are not many jobs outside fishing in the region that he could do. Fishing is the only income-generating activity that he can successfully perform. It is not uncommon for fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion to rely on combinations o f labor strategies in order to cover household expenses. A quick perusal o f household survey data shows that at least nine households (18%) combine either benefits from the Nutritional Assistance Program or Social Security with fishing and some other income-producing activity, whether a steady employment or the ubiquitous chiripas. Only in two cases (4%) did household incomes derive from the combination o f employment outside fishing and benefits from the Nutritional Assistance Program or Social Security system. One o f the households is headed by a foreman in one o f the industries located on the north side o f Guayanilla Bay and the other by a storekeeper who sells products such as sugar, cooking oil, bread and canned food (see Figure 5.3). Both households are located in Playa de Guayanilla. The household census data analysis showed that in this community fishermen’s households combine fishing with government economic transfers more heavily than households


181

elsewhere in El Faro and Encamacion. The strategies to supplement household incomes also include a combination o f various employment opportunities that range from semi skilled to skilled jobs that only pay a very low salary.

Figure 5.3 Income so urces for fifty fishermen's households in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacidn

Fishing, governm ent transfers and a third activity 18%

Employment 4%

Fishing and Nutritional A ssistance Program 44%

Fishing and Social Security 34%


182

The labor process o f fishing and its rewards I: The means of production, organization of the fishing crews and share systems The diversity o f households’ composition is a decisive factor that affects the economic decisions that fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion make. As I shall discuss, household composition may determine the outcomes o f fishing excursions because the latter depend on fishermen’s ability to pull economic resources from various household income sources and, in some cases, labor from the household unit. Economic data about the share of household income spent in supporting fishing excursions were hard to collect due to the fact that the majority o f fishermen did not keep detailed records o f their expenditures. However, it is reasonable to suggest that they only invest a small amount o f money to improve existing fishing technologies. At least two factors combine to explain this situation. Firstly, the diminishing returns from fishing provide little cash to upgrade existing fishing technologies. In fact, the small catch volume barely provides to pay for fishing vessels and gear’s maintenance and repair costs. Secondly, a substantial share o f the money earned from fishing and other income sources is used to cover a variety of household expenses that include water, electricity and telephone bills, not to mention medicines and health care required by the aging population of fishermen in the region. The reduced household incomes barely suffice for the simple reproduction o f household economy, similar to what Cook and Binford (1990:100-112) explained in the case o f rural households in the Oaxaca Valley o f Mexico. Given the constraints imposed by reduced household incomes and budgets, fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, like many others throughout Puerto Rico, depend to a large extent on financial support from various


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government agencies that have allowed them to acquire new vessels and fishing equipment. For example, in 1992 the Puerto Rican Department o f Agriculture started a Fisheries Loan and Incentive Program in order to facilitate the acquisition o f new vessels and fishing gear. Although fishermen from Encamacion have been able to benefit from such help, many fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla have been unable to do so. The problem is that before the fishermen can apply for government-approved loans, they must submit trip tickets showing the amount o f daily catches as well as obtain a fishing license. But the former condition is contingent upon the latter. In order to receive a license from the Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources fishermen have to submit the trip tickets to the Fisheries Research Laboratory. During my fieldwork, some fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla approached me and complained about delays in receiving the licenses and asked me to help them contact the personnel in the capital city responsible for issuing them. After two meetings with agents from the Department o f Natural and Environmental Resources some fishermen received the licenses and can now apply for government loans. However, others are still in non-compliance with government regulations for which reason they remain ineligible for the loans. Restrictions on loan applications compound the limitations derived from diminishing fish returns. As a result the majority o f fishermen surveyed continue to employ small wooden boats and fishing gear that have been little improved for the past fifty years. In the previous chapter, I explained that fishing excursions in these communities have historically relied on the use o f various net and line types that fishermen manufactured locally and small wooden boats that did not permit them to venture far offshore. The lack of technological improvements has clearly curtailed the


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potential for fisheries development in the region. Even today, with the exception o f Encamacion, gill nets, trammel nets, and cast nets continue to be the preferred fishing gear in Playa de Guayanilla, especially among fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez. As in the 1940s, local fishermen use fishing nets in the shallow areas o f river estuaries, along mangrove forests and on coral reefs. It has been recently documented that the use o f trammel and gill nets in Puerto Rico have increased in the last thirty years probably because they are cheaper and easier to operate than many other kinds o f fishing gear. Ethnographic data for the region under study thus confirms that “the trend in the Puerto Rican fisheries is to acquire and use enmeshing gear” (Valdes Pizzini, Acosta, Griffith and Ruiz Perez 1992:iv). Demographic data about net users in San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez correlate with the findings of a survey conducted in the early 1990s in order to evaluate the utilization o f various types o f nets in Puerto Rico. That survey indicated that the mean age o f net fishermen was higher (over fifty years) than the age o f fishermen who used different types o f gear. Similarly, the educational backgrounds o f net users were generally lower (less than six grades) than the educational background o f other fishermen on the island (see Valdes Pizzini, Acosta, Griffith and Ruiz Perez 1992:42-43). These tendencies are replicated in the region only if we compare fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla with those from Encamacion. In the former community, commercial fishermen specialize in the use o f trammel nets and gill nets, are older and have lower educational backgrounds than fishermen from Encamacion, who specialize in diving (see Table 5.3). However, there are differences among commercial fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla in terms o f the fishing gear used by fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and


185

Honradez, on one hand, and those from Villa del Carmen, on the other. The household survey that I conducted in 1997 showed that in Villa del Carmen eleven fishermen who predominantly use lines are older (59.82 years) and have lower educational backgrounds (5.5 grades) than net fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez, who have an average age of 52.13 years and an educational background o f 7.63 grades. The differences among fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla are not only important because they challenge the findings o f the survey conducted in the early 1990s but also because they determine the composition o f fishing crews and the share system practiced in each section o f the community. For example, fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez specialize in net fishing and usually only three fishermen form fishing crews: the skipper or boat’s captain and two proeles or helpers. The skipper directs fishing operations and makes the important decisions regarding the time and areas to lay fishing nets, the moment when they can be lifted to remove the catches and the moment to return to the community. The small number o f crew members facilitates the use o f wooden fishing vessels, whose small size also make inconvenient to bring more fishermen to the fishing excursion. Since gill nets and trammel nets are used similarly in different fishing locations, two fishermen can easily operate them. Haul seines, which were used locally until the early 1980s, were operated by seven fishermen and fishing vessels which measured more than twenty feet. In San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez crew size remains unaltered, although different fishermen may participate in them from one time to another. In fact, I noticed that in these two sections o f the community the formation o f fishing crews is very unstable, as the same group o f fishermen does not always belong to


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the same fishing crew. This was especially true when proeles were not available to go out to fish on a given day. When this happened, the skipper invited another fishermen who were not necessarily regular crewmembers; among them might be inexperienced fishermen or apprentices. I documented several cases when a fishing crew could not be formed due to lack o f personnel. The fishing trips were canceled because regular crewmembers had found a chiripa that could yield a better salary and thus refused to embark on a short fishing excursion with unpredictable results. This did not occur frequently, but whenever it did occur the productivity o f the fishing crew declined. Needless to say, the success o f fishing excursions could not be guaranteed when an inexperienced fisherman formed part o f the fishing crews. The flexibility o f fishing crews in these two sections o f Playa de Guayanilla is due to the fact that regular crewmembers can be replaced easily from the larger pool of unemployed residents if the need arises. The local fishermen are always able to find a relative or neighbor willing to go out on a fishing excursion for some additional money. The fishermen from San Pedro de Macons and Honradez usually start fishing around 7:00 a.m. and return to the community during the early afternoon hours. On average, they fish for approximately six hours three days a week. In a typical fishing day, they wake up around 3:00 a.m. and pack the fishing gear and other needed equipment such as gasoline, an ice cooler and food provisions in a wooden cart that they carry to the beach. The fishermen pulling wooden carts back and forth from their homes to the beach is, in fact, a distinctive cultural element of Playa de Guayanilla. In any other place in the region do fishermen use them. Crewmembers meet onshore and make sure that the fishing vessel and gear are ready. As mentioned earlier, they usually fish along sandy


187

cays and coral reefs or along river estuaries. The fishermen generally use trammel and gill nets in six different locations during each fishing excursion. Fishermen surround certain fishing spots and lift the nets every twenty or thirty minutes in order to remove the catches, an act they call a lance. When fishing crews return to the community, family members as well as friends help them land the catches and moor the vessel by rolling it over two plastic tubes and putting it to rest a few feet from the shoreline. Since lockers and the local fish house that the Puerto Rican government constructed to keep vessels and fishing gear in a safe place near the beach are not currently in use, local fishermen load the wooden cart when they return from fishing and carry it back home again. But before returning to their homes, the skipper sets aside a half o f the earnings in order to cover expenses involved in the excursion, that is to pay for vessel and gear maintenance and food provisions, and then divides the other half equally among the two proeles. The skipper utilizes any small surplus to purchase new fishing technologies or to pay for household expenses. In Villa del Carmen fishing excursions follow a different pattern. Since hand lines are the fishing gears most commonly used, and the fishermen do not require additional help to operate them, only a skipper forms a fishing crew. Even the few fishermen who still use fish pots usually go out to fish without relatives or neighbors. All line users in Villa del Carmen own their own fishing vessels and gear. Only in some cases, as when they combine fish pots and diving, will a skipper need a helper to row the boat from one fishing spot to another, but this is not a common situation. On average, fishermen from Villa del Carmen fish five days a week and follow a more consistent schedule than fishermen from both San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez. In the latter two sections o f the


188

community, fishermen can abstain from fishing for a few consecutive days, but in Villa del Carmen this does not generally happen. Local fishermen leave Villa del Carmen almost every morning around 3:00 a.m. to a shallow area near Punta Verraco, known as El Plan, to catch sardines they use as bait. From El Plan they then go on to the fishing spots close to the coral reefs and cays along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays and return to the community around noontime. Fishermen from Villa del Carmen also lack facilities to keep fishing vessels and fishing gear in a safe place. As in San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez, relatives, friends and even customers help them moor the fishing vessels by rolling them over two plastic tubes on the shoreline. In Villa del Carmen, fishermen also use wooden carts to bring fishing gear, equipment and food provisions from their homes to the beach and then back to their homes when they return from fishing. Before returning to their homes, fishermen give any unused bait to their friends or fellow fishermen who might go out to fish later in the evening. Otherwise, they throw large amounts o f sardines back into the water as food for seagulls. Since they fish on their own Villa del Carmen fishermen do not have a share system. Instead, some of them sell the catches to a middleman who comes to the community everyday at noontime and others sell to a fish house located next to the fish landing center in front o f Plaza del Pescador Desaparecido. Fish marketing and consumption will be discussed fully in the next section. Finally, in Encamacion we find an entirely different picture. The local fishermen are primarily divers, although some o f them sparingly use hand lines and fish pots. No one uses trammel nets or gill nets anymore. The Puerto Rican Highway #2 separates the area where the fish house and other fishing infrastructure are located from las parcelas,


189 the main residential area, and fishermen arrive in their cars as early as 3:00 a.m. in order to organize the fishing excursions. They fill the tanks in the premises of the fish house using an air compressor that the local association owns and start moving fishing vessels out o f the building. There is enough room inside to keep four large vessels and twenty lockers where fishermen can keep some fishing gear and their personal belongings. The local fishermen go out to sea almost every day and spend more time fishing than any fisherman from Playa de Guayanilla. They usually fish until around 1:30 p.m. although some may return to the community as late as 3:30 p.m. On average, local divers fish for nine hours six days a week. Two fishermen usually form a fishing crew: the diver and a helper who remains onboard to row the vessel from one fish location to another. The diver is generally the owner of the means o f production. In this community, the same two fishermen always form fishing crews and only rarely may a diver invite a different crewmember to join him. The four fishing crews examined included a diver who owns the fishing vessel and his father, a diver who owns the fishing vessel and his compadre, two young divers who are not tied by any kinship relationship, and a diver who owns the fishing vessel and his young son. All four divers are members o f the local fishermen’s association and thus must sell the catches to the fish house. At the end o f the day the skipper pays his helper a share of the earnings. The diver who fishes with his father and the diver who fishes with his son have a different share arrangement whereby they pay less than usual because, in the first case, the father receives Social Security benefits and, in the second case, the son is still in school and does not have many expenses. As for the other two fishing crews, the divers who own the fishing vessel divide half the returns between them and use the other


190

half to cover expenses incurred in the fishing excursion. In contrast to fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, who return to their homes as soon as they land the catches, in Encamacion fishermen shower in the fish house and spend some time on the premises talking about the working day. They accompany their lively conversations with beer they purchase in a small store across from the fish house. The combination o f fishing vessels and motors, fishing gear and crewmembers comprise a fishing unit o f production. The household survey data for the three fishing communities under study show that there are thirty-nine production units, o f which thirtytwo (82%) are located in Playa de Guayanilla, four (10%) are located in Encamacion and only three (8%) in El Faro. Table 5.4 shows the average length of thirty-nine fishing vessels and the average horsepower capacity o f forty-three motors reported by local small-scale fishermen. The mean length of thirty-nine fishing vessels is 18.30 feet. A more detailed analysis for the three communities separately shows that fishermen from Encamacion own larger fishing vessels, with a mean length o f 19.25 feet, and fishermen from El Faro own the smallest fishing vessels, with a mean length of only 15.33 feet. The mean length o f fishing vessels owned by fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla is 17.53 feet. With the exception o f three fishing vessels owned by fishermen from Encamacion, which are built entirely o f fiberglass, all others are caseras, a kind o f vessel built from wood and covered with a thin coat of fiberglass. In Playa de Guayanilla, some fishermen purchase vessels from a few artisans who still manufacture them locally. But it has become increasingly common for small-scale fishermen in the region to purchase fishing vessels outside their communities, especially in Encamacion where fiberglass vessels predominate.


191 The fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion also own forty-three motors that have a mean capacity o f 15.62 horsepower. O f this total, thirty-six motors, or 84%, are located in Playa de Guayanilla, while four (9%) are located in Encamacion and the remaining three motors (7%) are owned by fishermen from El Faro (see Table 5.4). As in the case of the fishing vessels, fishermen from Encamacion own the motors with the highest capacity —an impressive average o f 48.75 horsepower. Again, fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla own motors whose mean horsepower capacity is greater than motors owned by fishermen from El Faro. The mean capacity o f the motors in Playa de Guayanilla is 12.34 horsepower while in El Faro it is only 11.67 horsepower. The low quality and reliability o f the fishing vessels and motors owned by fishermen from El Faro are consistent with the low contribution that fishing makes to their household incomes. As non-commercial fishermen, they can continue fishing without upgrading the vessels and motors they already have. Only four (8%) fishermen included in the household survey, all o f whom live in Playa de Guayanilla, reported owning two motors. However, only one is a full-time fisherman. It is also important to note that the three communities show great disparities in fishing gear ownership and utilization. There are eleven fishermen (22%) who do not own a fishing vessel but may own various kinds o f fishing gear which they use to fish on their own. Ten o f these fishermen live in Playa de Guayanilla and one in Encamacion. Three of the fishermen are proeles who do not own anything and always form part o f fishing crews in San Pedro de Macoris. Needless to say, they are the most destitute fishermen in the community. They have low educational backgrounds (2.33 grades), are relatively old (50 years), and are very dependent on benefits derived from the Nutritional


192 Assistance Program as well as performing myriad odd jobs. Other fishermen in this group who also lack ownership of fishing gear, however, are not in such a precarious position. Among them, there are two fishermen who have steady employment outside fishing and fish only during evening hours or on weekends using fishing vessel and motors that they borrow from relatives or friends. The only fisherman from Encamacion in this category is worthy o f consideration. He is currently the president of the fishermen’s association but do not own any fishing gear or vessel because he quit fishing for a while after getting injured from bend disease while diving o ff the coasts o f Ponce. He is also the only fisherman in this group living in an extended household and depends on additional income from his wife’s work in a local garment factory. In general, the mean age o f the eleven fishermen is 42.36 years, the mean educational background is 7.45 grades and the mean household size is 2.73 members. Like in many other Caribbean countries, small-scale commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico depend on various combinations o f fishing gear to catch a great variety o f fish species. The multiple and diverse nature o f fishing gear is a direct consequence o f the multiple habitats that fishermen exploit. I have already mentioned that there exist important differences in terms o f the fishing technologies employed by fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez and those from Villa del Carmen and Encamacion. Table 5.5 presents data about the types and frequency distributions o f fishing gear employed by fifty fishermen surveyed in the region. The predominant fishing gear are hand lines used primarily in Villa del Carmen for demersal fishing. Ten fishermen interviewed in the region did not mention the total number o f hand lines they have, although they did mention owning them. Therefore, the number o f hand lines must be


193

higher than the figure reported in Table 5.5. On the other hand, the survey indicated one hundred and thirty four nets, used predominantly by fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez.

Table 5.4 Mean length of thirty-nine fishing vessels and horsepower capacity of forty-three motors owned by fifty fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion

Fishing vessels Number 0-14(1)

Motors % 3

Number 6-10 (28)

% 65

15-19(32)

82

11-15(5)

12

20-25 (6)

15

16-20 (0)

0

21-25 (6)

14

26-30 (0)

0

30+(4)

9

N= 39

100

N= 43


100

194

The other major fishing gears reported were fish pots, with sixty-six units. Only six fishermen (12%) reported owning them and more than half live in Playa de Guayanilla. But the few fishermen who still own fish pots use them infrequently and in combination with other fishing gear. Two fishermen in San Pedro de Macoris reported owning traps to catch land crabs but neither one provided the total number. This fishing strategy is employed by some o f the most destitute fishermen in the region because they can build traps from discarded materials found in their communities. Finally, nineteen fishermen reported owning scuba diving equipment such as masks, snorkel, harpoons, and spears. Although fifteen fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla reported owning some scuba diving equipment, diving is not practiced here on a regular basis. In Encamacion all fishermen interviewed are divers with full diving gear, including tanks. In some cases, divers from outside the community fill their tanks on the premises o f the local fish house, a practice the fishermen encourage because they can earn additional income charging a fee for this service.


195

Table 5.5 Types and frequency distributions of fishing gear owned by fifty fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion

Fishing gear

Frequency

Percentage

Lines

182

100

Hand lines

174

81

Troll lines

21

12

Cala

11

6

3

1

164

100

Trammel nets

38

28

Gill nets

31

23

Cast nets

65

49

Long line Nets

Fish pots Traps for land crabs Divers

66 3 19


196

The labor process of fishing and its rewards II: Inshore fishing, fish marketing strategies, and consumption activities The small size of fishing vessels, limited development o f fishing gear and low horsepower capacity of motors limit the distance that commercial fishermen can travel along the Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. Largely as a result o f these combined factors, commercial fishermen are confined primarily in the inshore areas. The fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro exploit more than one fishing location, the most important being mangrove forests next to Punta Verraco, coral reefs and various sandy cays such as Cayo Maria Langa, Cayo Caribe, Cayo La Mata and Cayo Palomas. These as well as smaller cays and islets are located at a short distance from the coasts along Guayanilla, Penuelas and Ponce and can be easily reached using small wooden vessels (see Figure 5.4). In contrast to fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro, in Encamacion the larger vessels and powerful motors allow fishermen to travel farther and spend more time fishing offshore. In fact, they fish as far away as Caja de Muerto, a nice fishing spot off the Ponce coast known for its abundant and rich fish banks where great amounts o f lobster and queen conch are found. However, fishermen from this community who operate wooden vessels and use fish pots stay in the inshore areas o f the bays like their counterparts from both Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro.


197

Figure 5.4 Fishing locations exploited by commercial fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion

According to a statement in the most recent Fisheries Research Laboratory census report, small-scale commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico have '"learned to market better their catch" (Matos Caraballo I997a:6). The Fisheries Research Laboratory census data show that the number of fishermen marketing the catches in an itinerant fashion has


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decreased from 44% in 1988 to 41% in 1996, while the number o f fishermen selling them to a fishermen’s association has increased from 21% in 1988 to 40% in 1996 (see Matos Caraballo 1997a:6). Fishery agents thus assume that commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico are better organized in the 1990s than in previous decades, although there are no clear indications in the report to confirm that fish marketing has been dramatically improved. The Fisheries Research Laboratory census report also lends support to the widespread belief that small-scale commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico use a large variety o f strategies to market their catches. Field observations in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion during 1997 confirmed this. Table 5.6 shows that the fifty fishermen surveyed in these communities market their catches in at least eleven different ways. The most common fish marketing strategies included selling the catches from the house (26%), fish peddling in the local communities (20%), selling the catches to a fish house (12%) and selling them to a fishermen’s association (10%). Fishermen who sell fresh fish from their homes argued that it not only allows them to control prices but also to increase them for they gut and scale the catches themselves. Especially in San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez, where there are no fish houses and the options to market fresh fish are much more limited than in Villa del Carmen and Encamacion, selling the catches from the house is economically attractive. Local fishermen have learned to create their own marketing networks in the region and, as I documented on several occasions, the majority depend on friends and neighbors who purchase fresh fish directly from them. The other fish marketing strategies reported are more flexible and generally produced unpredictable outcomes. They included selling the catches to a middleman


199 (6%) and a combination o f various strategies that range from selling them in an itinerant fashion and to a restaurant (4%) to selling fresh fish from the house and to a fish house (4%). As Table 5.6 shows, there is less variation among the combined strategies than among cases where only one option is available. These data suggest that close to half the fishermen surveyed (46%) are not better organized, as fishery agents have recently suggested, if we assume that a better organization implies the existence o f formal and steady marketing outlets such as fish houses and fishermen’s associations. Moreover, when we include the remaining 14% o f fishermen who use at least two different strategies to market the catches, the total increases to 60% as opposed to 22% who sell fresh fish to an association and a fish house separately. The other fishermen who seem to have a “better organization” (18%) include two proeles (4%) who give the catches to the skipper, three fishermen (6%) who sell them to a middleman and four fishermen (8%) who sell fresh fish only when the catches are abundant. Otherwise, the last group consumes the catches at home or gives them to relatives and friends.


200

Table 5.6 Fish marketing strategies reported by fifty fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnaci6n

Strategies

Number o f households

Percentage

Sell from the house

13

26

Fish peddling

10

20

Sell to a fish house

6

12

Sell to an association

5

10

Home consumption

4

8

Sell to a middleman

3

6

or

2

4

to

2

4

Sell from the house and to a fish house

2

4

Give the catches to the skipper

2

4

Fish peddling and sell from the house

1

2

Sell to a restaurants

fish

Fish peddling restaurants

Total

house

and

sell

50

100

It is also relevant to note that fishermen who sell the catches to a fish house (12%) and fishermen who sell them to middlemen (6%) live in Villa del Carmen. As pointed out above, fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez do not have as many fish


201

marketing outlets available as do those from Villa del Carmen. A middleman visits Villa del Carmen infrequently and sells the catches immediately after they are landed to consumers who wait in the beachfront across from Plaza del Pescador Desaparecido for the fishermen to return around noontime. The middleman drives a blue pick-up truck, and uses a scale to weigh fish and a freezer to keep frozen the portion that is not sold immediately. On the other hand, in Villa del Carmen there are two fish houses but only one (Santo Tomas) purchases fresh fish from six fishermen who live in this section o f the community. The fishermen do not sell fresh fish on contract but supply all the fish house’s demands while saving a little for home consumption. They receive payment after bringing the catches to the fish house. The other fish house (Pescaderia Santiago) does not purchase fresh fish from local fishermen but sells frozen fish that its owner purchases in major supermarket stores outside the community.4 Finally, fishermen from Encamacion sell their catches to the fishermen’s association Santo Cristo de la Salud since they receive the daily earnings after landing fresh fish. Once they bring them to the fish house they are weighed and cleaned on the premises and prepared for sale to consumers. Almost every day people from the community as well as from outside come to the fish house at around 11:00 am and wait until fishermen come back in order to purchase the freshest fish. The portion that is not sold immediately is kept frozen in the fish house. The local fishermen’s association has become the main supplier o f fresh fish to various restaurants and hotels located in Punta Cucharas, approximately six kilometers east o f Encamacion. These restaurants and hotels are located in an area that stretches along the seashore and caters to many consumers who travel from the south and west coasts to the northern municipalities o f the island. Also,


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next to the fish house there is another restaurant and across the street from the fish house there is a store, both o f which purchase fresh fish from the local fishermen’s association. But although fish production in Encamacion is higher than in Playa de Guayanilla, fish supply does not satisfy the constant demand from restaurants, bars and hotels in the region. Fish consumption is also widespread and selling the catches to local restaurants, bars and hotels is thus a profitable outlet for the most adventurous fishermen. Needless to say, fishermen from Encamacion control the most profitable marketing outlets in the region. The fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla, however, have many options to market fresh fish in their community but the volume o f their catches is very limited. In Playa de Guayanilla there are twenty-four places where fishermen can sell fresh fish and they range from restaurants and bars to small stores selling products as diverse as toothbrushes, cooking oil and fish. In the small stores, for example, customers usually get fritters commonly available in most fishing communities throughout Puerto Rico and only in restaurants and some bars can customers get a full menu where fish is included as a major food item. The largest and most frequently visited restaurants in Playa de Guayanilla are located in or close to Villa del Carmen in front o f Plaza del Pescador Desaparecido. This small square has become the center o f commercial and social live in this community. The people from nearby municipalities come here during weekends to consume fresh fish, spend some time with friends in the beachfront, or simply watch other peoples who enjoy riding jet ski in the bay. In the last two decades Playa de Guayanilla has seen an upsurge o f recreational water sport activities that have contributed to increase the number o f people from outside the community who visit the region.


203

Since Plaza del Pescador Desaparecido is in close proximity to industries still operating along the Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays, as well as to the urban sector o f the municipality, many workers come daily to local restaurants to consume fresh fish. Especially at noontime, workers from Central Costa Sur Power Plant, nearby industries, and various municipal offices, flock like seagulls to lunch in the restaurants around the square. At this time Plaza del Pescador Desaparecido, located across from the three most frequently visited restaurants in Villa del Carmen, suddenly turns into a crowded intersection o f peoples and cars that lasts until workers return to their jobs. Afterwards, the community regains its normal low-paced rhythm o f activity. Indeed, a striking feature o f Playa de Guayanilla is that it boasts more restaurants, bars, stores and other kinds o f commercial activities than the urban sector o f the municipality. Without doubt, the proliferation o f such commercial venues is directly related to the significant contribution that fish marketing and consumption have in the regional economy. Commercial activities such as dining out in restaurants attract a diverse crowd o f people mostly from outside the community while local residents can only afford to purchase fish and other foodstuffs in small stores. It is my contention that inadequate fish supply is not only a result o f the small amount o f fresh fish that local fishermen land but also o f the large number and diversity of outlets available to market their catches.

Fish production and economic success in southern Puerto Rico Between 1994 and 1996 the total amount of fresh fish that the fishermen from Encamacion landed increased from 54,535 pounds to 69,050 pounds. In Playa de


204

Guayanilla the increase for the same years was even higher, from 12,260 pounds o f fish in 1994 to 38,814 pounds in 19965 (see Matos Caraballo 1997b:36-38). In 1996, the year for which the most recent census data are available, the amount of landings that fishermen from Encamacion reported was valued at $214,771 and in Playa de Guayanilla landings were valued at $48,119 (Matos Caraballo I997b:38). The difference in value is explained by the fact that fishermen from Encamacion catch primarily lobsters and queen conch, two o f the highest priced species in the region. At the time I conducted fieldwork in Encamacion, lobsters brought fishermen $5.50 a pound and were sold to consumers at S.50 a pound more in order for the local fishermen’s association to obtain profit. Besides lobsters and queen conch, fishermen also catch octopus, groupers and snappers, which are in high demand throughout the year and thus sell very rapidly. Although some fishery agents have argued that the increase in the total amount o f landings reported in Puerto Rico is a result o f the promptness with which fishermen submit evidence o f their daily catches (see Matos Caraballo 1997b: 13), according to fishermen economic success responds to various objective and subjective factors. Table 5.7 shows the most common reasons that small-scale commercial fishermen used to explain the increase noted recently in the productivity o f the local fisheries. While some of them are clearly subjective others have to do more with the objective structure o f small-scale production in the three communities studied. Structural elements such as the kinds of fishing technologies that fishermen possess, knowledge o f the best fishing areas and seasons as well as frequency with which they go out to fish are more reliable arguments to evaluate increases in the total amount o f fish landings. Suggesting that the prompt cooperation o f small-scale commercial fishermen in providing more accurate fish


205

landing data is not only a weak argument on the part o f fishery agents and experts but also contradicts the assumption that small-scale commercial fishermen are now more organized than in the past few decades (see Matos Caraballo 1997a:6). As in the case o f inquiries in regards to economic success in the local fisheries, it was difficult to elicit unambiguous responses to questions such as “Who do you think the most successful fishermen in your community are?” and “Why are they successful?” For example, some fishermen talked coyly about who they thought the successful fishermen to be while others refused to respond to these questions arguing that they did not want to get involved in trouble by mentioning certain names and not others. These ambiguous responses are grouped at the bottom o f the table and include three fishermen (6.25%) who argued that in their community no one is successful, one fisherman (2.08%) who argued that they are successful only because they like to fish and another who argued that because they are unemployed they can fish for longer periods of time. The last two fishermen said that successful fishermen are lucky and desperate to raise cash, respectively. It is also worth noting that eight fishermen (16.67%) considered that there are no great differences among themselves in regards to knowledge, experience and access to fishing gear and technologies --the three most frequently mentioned reasons for success. This group o f respondents, however, is made up o f fishermen who fish only very rarely.


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Table 5.7 Elements of economic success among small-scale fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacion

Reasons

Number

Percentage

More experience

11

22.92

Go to fish more frequently

8

16.67

Everyone is equally successful

8

16.67

Own better gear and equipment

7

14.58

Better knowledge seasons

3

6.25

Go to longer distances

3

6.25

Fish prices

1

2.08

Others

7

14.58

Total3

48

100

of

fishing

a The total number o f fishermen does not equal fifty because, whereas some o f them mentioned more than one reason to explain economic success, others did not respond to the question.

The responses are also relevant because they revealed that there still exist divisions among fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla and a sense o f camaraderie among fishermen from Encarnacion. In Playa de Guayanilla there is ample agreement that the most successful fishermen live in Villa del Carmen and their success is explained by the fact that they have more experience and better knowledge o f the most productive fishing


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areas and seasons. Other fishermen similarly argued that they are successful because they own better fishing technologies and go out to fish more frequently than fishermen from San Pedro de Macoris and Honradez. No one mentioned that any fisherman from the last two sections o f the community is successful. On the other hand, in Encarnacion, where fishermen argued that all are equally successful, the explanations also focused on the frequency with which they go out to fish, their knowledge o f the best fishing spots and use of better fishing technologies. Due to the fact that in this community all fishermen are members o f the local association it is more difficult to espouse arguments that may contradict their fellow fishermen. The fact that their economic success depends on coordinated efforts o f the fishermen’s association makes them produce rather similar opinions and assessments about their lives and working experiences. The household data analyzed in this chapter have shown that fishermen from Encarnacion fit the requirements of economic success in the region, namely that they go out to fish everyday and own bigger fishing vessels that allow them to travel longer distances. These characteristics facilitate the exploitation o f the most productive fisheries such as lobsters, queen conch and first-class fish species like groupers and snappers. Indeed, close to 15% o f commercial fishermen mentioned that the fishing gear they own is a reliable measure of economic success (see Table 5.7). Additionally, their economic success is a consequence of the fishermen’s association, which provides an excellent outlet to market catches to nearby restaurants, bars and hotels and to secure economic and institutional support from the Puerto Rican and municipal governments. The fishermen’s association also provides other kinds o f benefits such as a Christmas bonus and financial support in case o f illness or when unexpected circumstances preclude them from fishing.


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Finally, in Playa de Guayanilla the lack o f adequate fishing technologies to exploit the best fishing spots in the inshore areas adds to the precarious economic situation o f many fishermen’s households. The inchoate marketing outlets to sell fresh fish and the elimination o f the fishermen’s association in the mid-1980s further hamper the reproduction o f the household economy.

Conclusions and recapitulation The fisheries of Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacion share the characteristics o f other poor coastal settlements in Puerto Rico. Local fishermen depend on a variety o f labor strategies that they combine with economic transfers from the federal and Puerto Rican governments in order to supplement meager household incomes. As one of the most important labor options available to them, old and young men alike carry out fishing. Its contribution to household incomes and budgets varies from community to community. For example, in Encarnacion fishing provides a sizeable share of household budgets as commercial fishermen fish on a full-time basis and receive higher returns than fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla and Encarnacion by virtue o f catching high priced species. They also market their catches in the most profitable outlets in the region. According to some estimates offered by fishermen, a regular fishing week can provide between $300 and $400 dollars which, coupled with money obtained from the Nutritional Assistance Program or employment o f other family members, greatly improves household budgets. The fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla show the most precarious social and economic conditions o f those surveyed. The social indicators o f poverty, low


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educational background, limited employment opportunities and low productivity o f the local fisheries documented in 1997 confirmed the conclusion that Playa de Guayanilla is in a disadvantageous position compared to other fishing communities o f equal size in southwest Puerto Rico (see Blay 1972). The household survey data analyzed in this chapter have also shown that there exist significant differences among fishermen from the three sections that make up Playa de Guayanilla. The fishermen from San Pedro de Macons, one o f the first settlements in the community, do not possess economic resources and fishing technologies to increase productivity o f the local fisheries. As a result, they fish mostly on a part-time basis and rely more than fishermen from other sections o f the community on government economic transfers and returns from various odd jobs they perform all year long. In Villa del Carmen, on the other hand, local fishermen carry out fishing with more success and are thus less dependent on external sources o f economic support. Not surprisingly, they are considered by many to be the most successful fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla. Lastly, El Faro was mentioned only in a few instances in order to highlight its nature as a small settlement of fishermen who do not pursue fishing as their main source o f household income. As retired workers, the three non-commercial fishermen surveyed here derive their primary income source from Social Security benefits. Their inclusion in the household survey, however, showed interesting demographic data that allowed a comparison with current conditions o f commercial fishermen’s households noticed elsewhere in the region. They are older and have higher educational backgrounds than fishermen from both Playa de Guayanilla and Encarnacion. These data are significant because they divert the case of non-commercial fishermen from the direct relationship


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between age and education observed in the other two communities. Demographic data collected from previous surveys in Puerto Rico have consistently shown that the average age o f small-scale commercial fishermen is generally above fifty years but not as high as sixty-seven, as the data for El Faro showed. Similarly, their average educational background does not normally surpass the elementary grades; in El Faro the average educational level was above eleven years. In this chapter, I have presented an analysis o f some major economic and social aspects of the local fisheries that confirm the precarious conditions o f most fishermen’s households in the region. Almost five decades of fisheries modernization programs have not been sufficient to improve the conditions of small-scale commercial fishermen in any significant way. Fishing is still practiced because it is one o f the few opportunities that elderly and uneducated persons have to generate an income. As some fishermen argued, they do not need a high school diploma in order to catch fish. Even fishery agents have recently acknowledged that small-scale commercial fishermen will continue fishing in the same way they have always done. The small-scale commercial fishermen interviewed in the region are the only ones who can evaluate the status o f the local fisheries, whether in the past, the present or the future. Such an assessment should be taken seriously into consideration because it entails fishermen’s own assumptions and perceptions about the manner in which fisheries modernization in particular and economic development in general have transformed their lives and work. This is the task that I will investigate in the next chapter.


211


1. The household survey extended over approximately eight months, but household census data were not collected throughout the period. Household data collection procedures were discontinued at times in order to conduct time allocation studies in fish landing centers as well as structured interviews with fishery agents in various government offices. These interviews were conducted outside the fishing communities in different areas throughout Puerto Rico. 2. One o f the fishermen lives in Playa de Guayanilla but belongs to the Fishermen’s Association Santo Cristo de la Salud, in Encarnacion. When I present the analysis o f household demographic composition, I include him among fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla. However, he is included among the fishermen from Encarnacion when I analyze the social production o f fishing, the ownership o f the means o f production, and fish marketing activities. 3. The collection o f fish landings data is an important part o f the Fisheries Statistics Program implemented under the Commercial Fisheries Research and Development Act o f 1964. Currently, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) funds this project while the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) coordinates it. 4. Even Pescaderia Santo Tomas buys frozen fish in major supermarket chains, especially during Lent when fresh fish demand increases sharply and local production cannot supply it adequately. But it normally relies on the catches that commercial fishermen land daily. 5. The landings that commercial fishermen from El Faro make are included in the total amount of fresh fish reported for Playa de Guayanilla.


CHAPTER 6

Ethnographic representation of fishermen’s engagements with industrialization: Semi-proletarianization and perceptions o f development

Once island and mainland officials agreed at the end o f the [Second World] war that Puerto Rico would industrialize, the institutional arrangements and policy instruments chosen by island planners needed to fit into the U.S. political economy. The state, therefore, would recede from its interventionist and entrepreneurial role. Sherrie L. Baver, 1993:120

W here have the industries gone? In Encarnacion there is another fisherman named Luis. In contrast to Don Luis, whose father was an independent sugarcane grower as well as fish vendor, this Luis has a different work trajectory to recall: one that may be better termed fisherman and proletarian. Luis is too young to be called “Don Luis,” a rather formal way o f addressing the elder and respectable fishermen. The only remembrances about agriculture that he had were about the ways his neighbors used to eke out a living from sugarcane cultivation and fishing. When sugarcane dominated the regional economy he was still a kid who collected crabs and oysters during afternoons and on weekends in the mangrove

212


213

forests and helped local fishermen land the catches and clean the fishing vessels. Indeed, he remembered fondly that for helping them land the catches the fishermen used to give him some third-class or small fish that he brought home with a heightened sense o f accomplishment. When he was between eight and nine years old did he begin to fish with friends and relatives using small wooden vessels, fishing nets and fish pots. However, he has always preferred to dive, initially without any gear and nowadays with full scuba equipment. For the majority o f commercial fishermen in his community, sugarcane cultivation was not a significant economic activity, as it was for fishermen in both Playa de Guayanilla and El Faro. Luis’ father has never worked in agriculture either. He was among the large number o f people who migrated from the highlands o f Penuelas and settled near the coast, in Las Salinas, lured by the industrial boom that petrochemical industries and oil refineries promoted beginning in the early 1950s. His father soon found a job as a laborer in Productos Salinos de Tallaboa, later known as Ponce Salt Industries, which inaugurated operations on June 30, 1951 (see Balasquide 1972:225). It was a small salt industry that survived for about a decade. Probably because its short life span, few local fishermen recalled that it had any economic importance to the region. In fact, most local fishermen only know that Productos Salinos de Tallaboa prepared salt, mainly for bakeries and for raising livestock. In Tallaboa Bay there were no port facilities to export salt and when competition from other producers intensified, the owners o f Productos Salinos de Tallaboa found it more convenient and cost-efficient to distribute the product using facilities available in the port of Ponce.


214

When Productos Salinos de Tallaboa closed operations in the mid-1960s,1 most residents from Encarnacion who worked there found jobs in petrochemicals and oil refineries located nearby. The Commonwealth Oil Refining Company (CORCO) began to construct its first unit in 1954 and started operations in 1956. It was finally incorporated on May 19, 1963 and represented an investment o f $25 million with the capacity to refine 23,500 barrels o f oil daily. In 1959, Puerto Rico’s first petrochemical plant opened “when Union Carbide began operating a $35-million plant to produce ethylene glycol with feedstocks purchased from the nearby CORCO refinery” (Baver 1993:50). The company that constructed Union Carbide, Chicago Bridge, contracted Luis as a welder. Union Carbide continued to add new units and plants until the late 1970s providing Luis with steady work for fifteen years. Welding was at the time a highly remunerated job in this region of impoverished rural laborers and fishermen who were coping with the dislocations and transformations that industrial development created. The money that Luis earned as a welder was added to the income he obtained from diving for lobsters and queen conch off the Ponce coast. As for many other coastal laborers, industrial development improved household income. I do not intend to overestimate the importance that industrial development has had for the economy o f the region. However, a superficial examination o f industrial development might as well preclude a comprehensive analysis o f the role that the Puerto Rican government played in fisheries modernization. In fact, a careful attention to the program o f industrial development in this region supports the contention that a major reason for neglect o f small-scale fishing has been the emphasis that the Puerto Rican government put on industrialization since the late 1940s. As I suggested in preceding


215 chapters, industrial development has had at least three important impacts. First, it has provided a steady source o f employment for some local fishermen at various times in their lives; second, it has led to dramatic population changes as great numbers o f people have settled in coastal areas and others emigrated when industrial production dwindled; and third, it has dramatically transformed the natural landscape o f coastal zones. I have already discussed how industrialization encouraged dramatic population changes in the region as well as the transformation o f coastal landscapes. In this chapter, I will highlight its contribution to the expansion o f multiple employment opportunities in the region and the semi-proletarianization o f local fishermen. For the most part, they did not abandon fishing completely but combined it with industrial employment. One last outcome o f industrialization that has not been mentioned yet is that it aroused the interest of researchers and scholars concerned with the study o f the effects o f rapid industrialization and urbanization in coastal areas. There are no field studies about the region prior to the start o f industrialization in the mid-1950s, a situation that might be explained in light of the fact that sugarcane production never developed as it did in other regions o f southern Puerto Rico (see Mintz 1956:321-323, Mintz 1974). In other words, low

agricultural

productivity

made

the

region

unattractive

to

historians and

anthropologists interested in agricultural and rural development. The first field studies were conducted in the early 1970s and focused on the consequences o f industrial pollution for marine and aquatic resources along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays (see Chartock 1980, Lopez 1979). As has been noted elsewhere, these early investigations were limited to evaluating “the effects o f heated water on organisms from the vicinity o f a steam-generating plant” (Lopez 1979:92). A striking feature has been the absence o f


216

studies that examine the extent to which industrial development has shaped fishermen’s perceptions o f economic development within the context o f rapid modernization. By diverting the study o f industrial development from the socio-political framework o f modernization and cultural change in Puerto Rico, investigations have also failed to evaluate the ideologies driving industrial development. Pantojas Garcia (1990) provides a salutary and welcome attempt to inscribe the analysis of economic modernization in the context o f ideological transformations in Puerto Rico since the late 1940s. One o f his main contentions is that Operation Bootstrap, the model o f economic development pursued since that moment, responded to the ideological shift o f the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) from populist organization mainly concerned with improving the socio-economic situation o f peasants and rural laborers to the creation o f a professional cadre o f technocrats engaged in the elimination o f backward agrarian structures (Pantojas Garcia 1990:39-45). For Pantojas Garcia (1990) the modernization o f Puerto Rico’s economy and culture go hand in hand with the fragmentation and differentiation o f society by social classes. Such an analytical and conceptual framework is more akin to the approach that I will employ in analyzing fishermen’s perceptions o f development in this chapter than the approach used in the biological and chemical studies o f pollution conducted during the 1970s. My analysis is also an attempt to fill the vaccum that recent ethnographic and historical studies of coastal Puerto Rican towns and communities have produced (see Berman Santana 1996, Davila 1997:142-164, Torres

1995:110-135). In these ethnographies, small-scale

commercial fishermen are generally represented as another element o f the cultural landscape of celebrations and festivals that abound in the island all year long.


217

In this chapter I will examine the role o f industrial development as a major factor that has helped construct fishermen’s perceptions o f economic development. On the one hand, industrialization has facilitated the semi-proletarianization o f local fishermen as they have creatively combined industrial employment with fishing. They remembered that when industrialization was as its peak they fished at nighttime and their communities were booming with commercial and trade activities. On the other hand, and despite the economic bonanza ushered in by the industrial complex, industrialization has been blamed by many small-scale commercial fishermen for the decline o f local fisheries. In addition,

when

industrial

development

collapsed,

fishermen

reverted

to

de-

proletrianization, an economic condition that critically affected the reproduction o f their household economy. As a result, fishermen’s perceptions o f development are characterized by a multiplicity o f contested opinions that buttress the negative assessments they made o f small-scale fishing in the region, both at the present moment and in the future.

Industrial development and semi-proletarianization among rural fishermen Puerto Rico’s proximity to the northern coast o f Venezuela, which lies approximately 525 miles away and is an oil producing country, was taken into consideration when Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays were selected as sites for a petrochemical industrial complex on the southern coast o f the island. The Commonwealth Oil Refining Company (CORCO) was the first major industry established there. It attracted other industrial developments, like electricity production and ship building. For


218

example, in 1958 the South Puerto Rico Towing and Boat Service, Inc. started operations and a few years later constructed a small shipyard (Astillero del Sur, Inc.) where the Frances P., the first maritime tug boat to operate in Puerto Rico, was built. Tug boats were a necessary addition to industrial development in the region as they guided bigger ships entering the bays to refine crude oil in CORCO plants. On the other hand, on April 12, 1958 Central Costa Sur Power Plant initiated operations with two power generating units; by 1983 energy demands in Puerto Rico had greatly increased and the plant was expanded in order to include six additional units (Sievens Irizarry 1983:45). Industrial development along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays continued unabated until the late 1970s, when the economic crisis produced by high prices for imported oil forced many industries to shut down. The petrochemical industrial complex had benefited from the concesion o f special oil import quotas in 1965 and 1968 for which reason the majority o f petrochemical plants and oil refineries gained privileged access to cheap Venezuelan and Middle Eastern oil. According to Pantojas Garcia (1990:110-111), in 1969 a United States corporation operating in Puerto Rico paid S2.25 for a barrel o f Venezuelan oil while producers in the United States were forced by the quota to buy oil at $3.50 per barrel. In order to eschew the possibility that higher oil import quotas were applied to Puerto Rico, lobbysts and legislators travelled to Washington, DC. and gained support to amend Presidential Proclamation 3663. I mentioned in Chapter 4 that the United States Congress approved Presidential Proclamation 3279 in 1979 and allowed the island to continue importing oil at cheaper rates than oil importers in the United States mainland. However, the collapse o f oil prices was not envisioned in any governmental proclamation and the United States


219

government did little to avoid the Organization o f Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) from calling an oil embargo in 1973. Industrial development in Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays was so rapid and successful that in 1977 twenty-seven out o f fifty-one petrochemical plants established in the island “were operated by CORCO and Union Carbide. Both these companies had been ranked among the 500 largest companies in the United States by Fortune Magazine” (Pantojas Garcia 1990:114). CORCO provided a larger share o f government revenues and employment than any other industrial plant operating at the time in Puerto Rico. For example, in 1978 it supplied 80% of the petroleum products consumed in the island and served as Puerto Rico’s largest employer, with a labor force numbering approximately 2,700 workers. CORCO was not only the biggest and most important industrial employer on the island but was also considered among the “largest independent petroleum refiners and petrochemical producers in the world” (Baver 1993:58-59). By 1978 “nine petrochemical plants were operating in the complex as CORCO subsidiaries or joint ventures, representing a total investment o f more than $545 million” (see Baver 1993:5859). The sudden collapse o f oil refining and petrochemical industries halted the plans to construct a port on Mona Island, off the southwest coast o f Puerto Rico, that would have been used as a transshipment station for crude oil imported from Venezuela and the Middle East. It is ironic, then, that the Puerto Rican government has recently proposed the construction o f a “superport” in the southern coast and that Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays have been mentioned among the leading candidates for its location.2 Government officials believe that the natural depth o f Guayanilla Bay as well as the industrial


220

infrastructure already in place in the coast will facilitate the construction o f a transshipment station for crude oil in southern Puerto Rico. All the petrochemicals and oil refineries established since the mid-1950s are gone; today some tanks and storage facilities are used as “terminal facilities for suppliers o f liquid petroleum gas used for cooking” (Baver 1993:59). The downfall o f industrial operations in Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays clearly reduced the options that local fishermen had to improve their economic well-being. As an example, consider the fact that industrial output in Puerto Rico fell almost 20%, from 5.2% in 1974 to 4.2% in 1976 and the industrial complex’s contribution to manufacturing net income fell from 13.1% in 1974 to 8.1% in 1977, a reduction o f approximately 40 percent (Baver 1993:57-58). The only industries that remain —DEMACO, Vassallo Paints and Coating, Peerless Oils and Chemicals, and TEXACO-- started operations more recently and rely on an educated and well-trained labor force (see Table 4.2). The utilization o f coastal landscapes to develop heavy industries has invariably produced negative results for small-scale fishing communities in many areas o f the world, as C erf (1990), Koester (1986) and Kottak (1999) have demonstrated. Koester (1986) analyzed the economic transformation o f Cul de Sac Valley, in southeast St. Lucia, from plantation agriculture based on slave labor to commercial agriculture based on the production and exportation of bananas to European markets to, finally, the construction o f a transshipment station to store oil for an American company, Amerada Hess. St. Lucia is located along the route utilized by oil cargoes passing by the Caribbean in close proximity to United States Virgin Islands, where Amerada Hess operated an oil refining complex during the late 1970s. Similar to the situation confronted by fishermen


221

in Penoncillo when Pittsburgh Plate and Glass (PPG) constructed a petrochemical industry on the north side o f Guayanilla Bay, fishermen in Cul de Sac Valley were relocated to an inland area far from the shoreline and forced to cope with adverse fishing conditions. The transformation of St. Lucia’s rural economy from sugar plantation to oil storage occurred at a much later time than in southern Puerto Rico and had less devastating consequences because it only lasted a few years between the late 1970s and early 1980s (Koester 1986). In fact, when industrial development was pursued in Cul de Sac Valley small-scale commercial fishermen in southern Puerto Rico were already coping with the burdens o f de-industrialization and de-proletarianization. Cerf (1990) analyzed a similar case o f late, rapid industrialization in coastal landscapes in her study o f the impacts o f industrial water pollution on an artisanal fishing community in northeastern Brazil. Sao Braz, a poor fishing settlement located close to the estuary o f the Subae River, in the state o f Bahia, began to experience a transformation o f rural economy only during the early 1980s, when a lead smelter, various paper industries as well as sugarcane refineries and distilleries were established along the coast o f Bahia de Todos os Santos. As a result of heavy industrialization, most fishermen intensified production by fishing with cotton nets made with smaller mesh sizes that captured high percentages o f juvenile fish. Cotton nets, which had been replaced by nylon nets during the mid-1950s, had become increasingly unproductive because industrial pollution in the river estuary and inshore fishing areas reduced the population of some major fish stocks. Other transformations o f the rural economy included an increasing combination o f various working strategies that involved migrating to major urban centers in search for jobs, changing occupations more frequently, securing low-wage employment in some o f


222

the newly established factories in the region, farming, odd jobbing and entrepreneurship. O f all these strategies, farming or agricultural employment was preferred the least because o f huge inequalities in the land tenure system in rural Brazil as well as negative stereotypes that agricultural workers are lazy, poor and illiterate (see C erf 1990:179-185). On the other hand, entrepreneurship almost always involved setting up a small store, a bar or restaurant where fishermen could sell fresh fish or pastries made with their own catches. In constrast to the situation in St. Lucia, where oil refining collapsed during the early 1980s, in northeast Brazil industrial development has continued into the 1990s and fishermen from Sao Braz and nearby towns are still coping with various socio-cultural changes brought about by modernization. Kottak (1999) provides another example of rural transformations through his investigations o f economic modernization in Brazil and its impact on rural economy in Arembepe, a small fishing community in the northeast. Kottak (1999) has conducted field research in this community since the early 1960s and been able to document socio-economic, cultural and political changes for more than thirty years. The similarities between southern Puerto Rico and northeast Brazil in terms o f the impacts that industrial development has had on coastal environments and fishermen’s households are impressive. For example, the growth and development o f fishing communities by the expansion of squatter settlements, the intensification o f fishing activities and modifications o f fishing technologies and practices are some outcomes that can be attributed to processes of industrial development in both countries. Excluding obvious differences in economic development programs pursued by the Brazilian and Puerto Rican governments since the mid-1950s -- which reflect the particularities of


223

economic and state formation processes in both countries— outcomes o f economic and cultural modernization have been replicated with amazing similarity in the two countries. For a large number o f small-scale commercial fishermen in southern Puerto Rico industrialization has played a key role in furthering their semi-proletarianization. Many small-scale fishermen found industrial jobs mostly during the early construction phases or, later, in menial positions such as janitors. Table 6.1 shows the number o f fishermen and types o f jobs they have had. For example, demographic data indicate that twelve (24%) fishermen have been employed by some petrochemicals and oil refining industries, but only one has held a high-income producing position as a machine operator for Union Carbide. Six (50%) of the twelve fishermen have worked as laborers digging ditches and assembling the industrial infrastructure, two (17%) have worked as welders, two more as janitors and one (8%) as a painter in TEXACO. I assume that the number o f fishermen employed during the early construction stages must have been much higher than indicated in the table because industrial development in the region required a large labor force of both semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Likewise, the fact that the industrial complex was constantly expanding until the early 1980s might have helped local Fishermen to

find employment opportunities setting

up the needed

infrastructure.


industrial

224

Table 6.1 Types o f industrial jobs available for twelve fishermen in Guayanilla and Peftuelas Type o f Job

Number

Percentage

Laborers

6

50

Welders

2

17

Janitors

2

17

Painter

1

8

Machine operator

I

8

12

100

Total

In a survey conducted during the late 1960s, Blay (1972) found that low educational background and high age made it difficult for small-scale fishermen to find steady employment in industries located along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. For example, fifty percent o f the fishermen included in his survey had less than three years o f schooling while only 2.6% had between ten and twelve years of schooling. On the other hand, the average age was fifty-two years, the highest o f all fishermen Blay (1972) studied in southwest Puerto Rico. The local fishermen also had higher average ages than other laborers (see Blay 1972:59-60). These findings correlate positively with the situation that C erf (1990) documented for northeast Brazil, where she also found that fishermen’s low educational background and lack o f industrial skills curtailed their


225

chances to work in the lead smelter, paper factories or the sugarcane mills and distilleries in close proximity to their communities. Lastly, household data from the survey I conducted among small-scale commercial fishermen in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacion showed that, with the exception o f one fisherman who argued that he has never worked outside fishing, all have combined fishing with various forms o f industrial labor. Household survey data also revealed that full-time fishing is not an option for any small-scale fishermen’s household in southern Puerto Rico. In fact, a typical fishing household combined at least two different jobs while many had three. For example, a fisherman from Playa de Guayanilla mentioned that besides fishing he has also worked as a mechanic, a taxi and truck driver and fruit vendor (see Figure 5.2). In southern Puerto Rico, as in northeast Brazil, “combining fishing with other occupations is more likely to occur during times of economic distress” (C erf 1990:175). When industrial development in southern Puerto Rico declined many small-scale commercial fishermen, as well as many other coastal laborers, diversified economic strategies in order to generate adequate household incomes. One of the most important economic alternatives available to them was to emigrate to other urban centers in Puerto Rico or to the areas in eastern United States with large concentrations o f Puerto Ricans. The period o f declining industrial development in the region under study coincided with the moment when Blay (1972) conducted his survey among small-scale commercial fishermen in southwest Puerto Rico. He reported that, for instance, 16% o f fishermen’s households in Playa de Guayanilla had someone in the family who had migrated to United States mainland and a “further 7.7% had worked there for a short period o f time” (see Blay 1972:60).


226

Although Blay (1972) does not provide additional information about those fishermen who worked in United States mainland “for a short period o f time,” it is likely that they were fishermen contracted as farm laborers to work in various places in the eastern United States. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Puerto Rico’s Department o f Labor and the United States government maintained a program that allowed Puerto Rican fishermen and other rural laborers to spend a few months every year picking and packing fruits and vegetables. At the end o f the harvest season they returned to Puerto Rico and resumed fishing. Migration to the United States mainland has always been an economic alternative for Puerto Ricans. Apart from seasonal, agricultural jobs in places like New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Michigan they also obtained work in semi-skilled and unskilled positions in restaurants, hotels and factories. According to Blay (1972:60), most fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla who migrated to the United States during the late 1960s were “in the 15 to 44 [age] bracket,” which he defined as comprising the most productive years o f the economically active rural population. The household survey that I conducted in 1997 showed that thirty three fishermen (66%) have migrated to United States at some point in their lives and ten (20%) have worked during the harvest seasons in agriculture primarily in New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware (see Figure 6.1). Seasonal labor migration to United States mainland coincided with the period o f heightened industrial development in the region and thus augmented employment alternatives for many local fishermen. It also confirms that only a few local fishermen found employment in the industrial complex established along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. Perhaps more significant for the present analysis has been industrialization’s contribution to the semi-proletarianization o f local fishermen in a way


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that mirrors the results that Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson (1992) reported for Puerto Rico as a whole. In their analysis o f working trajectories o f one hundred and two fishermen’s households across the island, they found that “incomplete incorporation” o f small-scale commercial fishermen “into the formal economic structures and process o f capitalism” is threefold (Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson 1992:53). First it involves proletarianization, whereby fishermen’s households may abandon fishing altogether and engage more heavily in industrial employment. Second, semi-proletarianization may arise when commercial fishermen combine the income derived from fishing with earnings from industrial jobs and, third, de-proletarianization occurs when fishermen abandon wage labor to pursue commercial fishing on a full-time basis. The latter, however, should not be confused with retirement. Similar to the results obtained by Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson (1992), most fishermen’s households surveyed in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encarnacion maintained a semi-proletarian status as fishermen continued to fish in order to supplement the wages they earned from industrial jobs. No household was following a total proletarianization path because fishermen did not earn enough money from other work in order to quit fishing. As I mentioned earlier, less than 50% o f the local fishermen found jobs in petrochemical plants and oil refineries. But in contrast to Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson’s findings (1992), the majority o f fishermen’s households surveyed in southern Puerto Rico reverted to de-proletarianization in the wake of industrial collapse during the late 1970s. The examples that Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson (1992:59-70) discuss showed that de-proletarianization resulted when small-scale commercial fishermen were injured and claimed the economic benefits of their settlement


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or, alternatively, after winning the lottery. Both situations allowed fishermen to invest in the acquisition o f new fishing vessels and gear. Among the fifty fishermen surveyed in southern Puerto Rico, de-industrialization meant the inequivocai return to part-time fishing combined with scratch a living from doing whatever odd jobs were available in their communities. Other fishermen, however, preferred to migrate to United States and returned to their communities after they had earned enough money to keep fishing at a much reduced capacity. Fishing, migration labor, and industrial employment are all intertwined in fishermen’s consciousness and perceptions o f economic development.

Figure 6.1 Percentage of commercial fishermen who have migrated to the United States mainland

Farm Labor 17%


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Fisherm en’s perceptions of development Luis has never migrated to United States or anywhere in Puerto Rico in order to seek employment. He is one o f the most successful fishermen in Encarnacion and, as he himself told me, fishing yields the only source o f household income. When the boom o f industrial expansion in the region came to an end in the late 1970s, he did not have many opportunities to find industrial employment and thus intensified fish production by diving for lobsters and queen conch. Currently he lives with his wife, a daughter who will soon graduate from high school and a brother in law that he helped to raise. His brother-in-law has an associates degree in computers but was recently laid off from his position at Penuelas’ City Hall. While his brother-in-law was working at the city hall, Luis became inelegible to receive benefits from the Nutritional Assistance Program, the federal program to help low income families raise their economic standards, although he now plans to apply for the program once again. None o f the other family members work, and he thus counts on Nutritional Assistance Program benefits to supplement his earnings. Although he contracted bend disease not long ago, he continues to fish almost daily, though the money he earns from catching lobsters and queen conch barely suffices to support his family. The times are long past when he used to earn a robust salary working as a welder for Chicago Bridge in the construction o f Union Carbide, CORCO, and other petrochemical industries. Luis is only one o f the few fishermen who secured a steady job during the whole period of the industrial construction boom. Not surprisingly, he harbors fond memories o f the transformation o f rural economy and fishermen’s (partial) incorporation into the industrial economy. He remembers especially that when industrialization was being


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promoted many local fishermen were able to improve their economic situation, and that they were able to purchase automobiles, repair their homes and acquire most modem conveniences like televison sets, radios, and washers that Puerto Rico’s government heralded as the hallmark o f economic and cultural progress. As he described it, the economic boom seemed like an endless golden opportunity and everyone, including fishermen, believed that local residents were going to experience higher economic standards forever. But when the promises o f economic development faltered during the late 1970s, many industrial workers lost their jobs and opted for a fast and easy, though abominable, escape: they committed suicide by hanging themselves. Amidst the rusted chimneys and tanks o f petrochemical plants and oil refineries, Central Costa Sur Power Plant still rises as an undefeated giant. However, it does not provide any jobs for local fishermen because, according to Luis, “it has its own work force. Now everyone around here is unemployed or seeking odd jobs.”3 While Luis’ case reinforces the perception that industrialization in southern Puerto Rico was positive because it provided a reliable source o f income, it can sustain the idea that only a handful fishermen with necessary skills and training found jobs in the industial complex. As a young person with a solid training in welding, Luis was among the lucky fishermen who found steady employment in one of the highest paying industrial jobs available to coastal laborers. The older and poorly educated fishermen, however, fared quite differently because their access to industrial jobs was limited. Such was the situation that Rullan, a non-commercial fisherman from El Faro who used to work as a foreman for Central Rufina, had to confront. Like most residents from El Faro, he has never fished commercially but neither has he benefitted directly from industrial


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employment; he deplores industrialization because it relied on the labor force o f workers from nearby towns and municipalities. For Rullan, the only significant contribution o f industrial development has been that “the municipal government earned the revenues that [industries] paid”4 for operating in the region. A pillar o f Puerto Rico’s model of industrial development were tax exemptions for a period o f between ten and twenty years granted to United States multinational corporations that established plants on the island. They almost always abandoned the island when the tax exemption period expired, although in the region under study they left mainly because o f the 1970s economic recession. Rullan is not upset because a few residents from his community found steady employment in the industrial complex, but, more significantly, because he saw how industrialization o f Puerto Rico’s economy replaced sugarcane production and by extension the old social structure o f hierarchical privileges he cherised so much. Indeed his case is special because his perceptions o f industrial development are nuanced by a longing for an agrarian past that only foremen and overseers (like himself) wished had never disappeared. The fishermen who worked in both sugarcane and industrial production are grateful for the contributions that industrialization made to the regional economy. Don Luis, for instance, worked during the early 1970s in the construction of Pittsburgh Plate and Glass Industries (PPG), but always kept fishing in order to supplement his household’s income. For him securing a temporary job in the industrial complex made it possible to purchase a variety o f products that otherwise he could not have acquired. By the time he worked for PPG Industries sugarcane production had already collapsed.


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The industrialization o f coastal zones accelerated the semi-proletarianization of local fishermen as they continued to fish during nighttime. The discourse o f older commercial fishermen is interesting because while it praises industrialization’s contribution to the local economy it also produces a quasi-nostalgic longing for an agricultural past they know will never return. Don Luis worked extensively in sugarcane cultivation and harvesting, and his father was a colono who sold sugarcane on contract to Central Rufina. As a result, his memories are unquestionably nurtured by his perceptions o f agricultural work as the best and most dignified way to earn a living. He argued repeatedly that local fishermen were doing fine when sugar mills were operating in the region, “but when the industries came sugar mills were closed.”5 Like for many fishermen who also engaged in sugarcane production, it did not matter to Don Luis that he was poorly paid for cutting and harvesting sugarcane under an implacable sun. Nor did it matter that the sugarcane economy was subject to the vagaries o f prices paid for this commodity in global markets. What really mattered for all of them was that industrial development in Puerto Rico turned agriculture, and especially sugarcane production, into an unfeasible economic pursuit. Rapid, intensive industrialization, as has been the case along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays, has always had an impact on fishermen’s perceptions o f economic development. For small-scale fishermen in northeast Brazil, where industrial development has been a much more recent occurrence, C erf (1990) reported that many people felt powerlessness to deal with the most common problems o f industrialization, like environmental pollution and subsequent overharvesting o f fish stocks with high commercial value. This sense of powerlessness was manifested in the fishermen’s


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“attitude of passivity and reliance on a higher authority” which, in the context o f rural northeast Brazil, entailed the expansion o f government bureaucracy in local fishing communities (Cerf 1990:111). For small-scale commercial fishermen in southern Puerto Rico industrialization is an ambiguous terrain that creates positive and negative perceptions depending mostly on emphasis they put on economic development’s outcomes. I have suggested earlier that the majority of commercial fishermen interviewed in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion considered industrialization positive insofar as it allowed them to have steady employment and improve their economic well being. A common argument that fishermen use in order to justify industrial development’s positive influence is to point to the situations o f retired industrial workers who receive generous pensions. Another group o f fishermen considered that industrialization’s main contribution was to further the expansion o f commercial activities in the region as more people migrated to areas close to the industrial complex. This group o f fishermen believed that the growth and expansion o f fishing communities promoted commercial activities like bars, small lodging facilities and restaurants that increased the local demand for fish. Some fishermen took advantage o f this situation and set up independent fish houses in order to purchase and sell fresh fish. Indeed, the current spatial and residential distribution in Playa de Guayanilla has been attributed to the economic and commercial boom promoted by industrial development. For example, a local fisherman convincingly argued that when industries were still operating in the region the community grew larger and expanded with more commercial activities devoted to the preparation and selling o f fish pastries and beverages, “just like it is now because everywhere there is a store.”6


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On the other hand, those fishermen who have negative perceptions o f industrial development based their opinions on the fact that it has increased levels o f contamination and thus led to the collapse o f some major fish stocks, like queen conch and snappers. It is important to note that even fishermen who have a positive perception o f industrial development also blamed it for the declining productivity in local fisheries. Not only has industrial pollution had deleterious effects on some major fish species but, as I mentioned in Chapter 4, it has also contributed to the elimination o f mangrove forests and other coastal vegetation, as well as to the reduction of fish biodiversity in coral reefs. It is true that some industries have produced more contamination than others, as has been recently acknowledged. For example, Central Costa Sur Power Plant and PPG Industries have repeatedly been identified by both fishermen and environmentalists as major sources o f regional industrial pollution (see Servicios Cientificos y Tecnicos 1995). Scientists have determined that hot water discharged by Central Costa Sur Power Plant has increased water temperature levels in Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays while discharges o f cloro by PPG Industries have decimated marine and coastal resources. The latter was forced by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to shut down operations because it exceeded permisible levels o f air and water pollution in Puerto Rico. The degradation o f coastal and marine environments is certainly one o f the major factors that has helped shape fishermen’s perceptions o f development. It is fairly easy for them to move back and forth from positively assessing industrial development to blaming it for the decline o f local fisheries. The mixed opinions and perceptions that most commercial fishermen produced can be better assessed when we acknowledge that the economic well being they derived from industrialization was rather short lived. Small-


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scale commercial fishermen unanimously agree that heavy industrialization has had adverse and possibly irreversible effects on coastal areas and marine resources as well. It is also true that for them industrial pollution does not represent a serious problem anymore precisely because most industries have abandoned the region. Now fishermen have to cope with new problems, such as the indiscriminate use o f jet skies in fishing areas and bureaucratic procedures they have to go through in order to receive fishing licenses. However, as some commercial fishermen argued, it will be hard to revert to the conditions they had prior to the beginnings o f industrial development because “the damage is already done and the fisheries will never be the same.”7 Even though fishermen’s perceptions o f development are conditioned to a great extent by both positive and negative outcomes o f industrialization, at least two objective results can be identified. Firstly, industrial development along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays reduced fishermen’s access to the best fishing spots in the inshore areas thus forcing them to fish farther offshore. The fact that small-scale commercial fishermen had to fish farther offshore further complicated their situation because they owned primarily small wooden vessels and modest fishing gear that limited their chances to successfully conduct offshore fishing excursions. Only a few fishermen were capable and willing to spend several weeks roaming the southern coasts o f Puerto Rico as far as Ponce and Cabo Rojo. Secondly, commercial fishermen confronted serious difficulties in marketing the catches locally because potential buyers and consumers deemed (correctly) that fresh fish might have been contaminated with cloro and other harmful substances discharged by petrochemicals and oil refineries in Guayanilla Bay. Only a few daring people were


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willing to purchase contaminated fish. In Playa de Guayanilla fishermen still remember that whenever they attempted to sell their catches outside their communities fish buyers and consumers asked them where they had caught them. If they responded Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays, chances were that the potential customers would reject the fish. Thus they learned to cheat by assuring consumers that the fish were caught in Guanica, a nearby municipality known for its abundance of nice fishing spots and located far away from any significant source o f urban or industrial pollution. The fishermen’s narratives about industrial pollution and fish poisoning were validated by results from various scientific studies that concluded that the “people living in the area o f Guayanilla consuming a large quantity o f fish should be aware o f the potential threat that some species may represent to their health” (see Ramirez Barbot 1979:24). These two outcomes o f industrialization affected equally fishermen’s households in the region and forced them to adapt to declining fish productivity as well as lack o f confidence of potential fish buyers and consumers. The closing o f industrial operations, however, has increased unemployment rates among local fishermen and compelled them to resort to fishing as a major economic activity. But in contrast to the times when fish were plentiful, local fishermen now have to scratch a living from the scarce marine resources available in waters o f Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. The reduction o f industrial pollution is credited with a noticeable recovery of some fish stocks as well as maritime flora and fauna along the coasts. Environmentalists have confirmed this in recent studies conducted in the region (see Servicios Cientificos y Tecnicos 1995:89) and local fishermen told me, perhaps a bit euphorically, that nowadays they can fish anywhere in the inshore areas. But only a small group o f fishermen deem this recovery a


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positive sign o f a more promising future. As I will discuss in the next section, most fishermen acknowledge that in order for their household’s incomes to improve significantly, they will need more than just an adequate supply o f fresh fish. The majority, however, remember fondly the good old days when fish were plentiful and environmental pollution and degradation did not exist. The fishermen with whom I spoke in Playa de Guayanilla made me believe that good memories can actually last forever. As one o f them argued: [Before] we used to fish a lot, we fished more than ten times what we now do. I can tell you that about fifteen or twenty years ago fish buyers had to stop fishermen saying “Don’t go to fish this week” because they could catch four, five, six, or more quintales in a week! Fish were very plentiful.8 To the majority o f commercial fishermen who continue fishing the waters o f Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays the future is uncertain. Similar to Kottak’s (1999) conversation with fishermen in northeast Brazil, fishermen in Guayanilla and Penuelas told me that almost nothing can be done to eliminate environmental damages caused to coastal landscapes and marine resources since industrialization began in the mid-1950s. When I asked about their perceptions o f the current conditions o f local fisheries, they argued that they had noticed little improvement. What strikes me about their tenacity is the fact that even though they are aware little hope exists to improve their economic well-being, they are also willing to continue fishing as long as possible using their historic techniques. They also know that because there are few available economic options outside fishing, they must return to the inshore fishing grounds, albeit damaged and overexploited as they are, because the ocean always gives them something. Like a


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grateful bunch o f siblings who esteem their elders, local fishermen will continue to fish because, like a family, the sea “always gives some food.”9

Further perceptions of small-scale fishing In southern Puerto Rico The fishermen’s perceptions o f economic development discussed in the preceding section were mainly contingent on outcomes that industrial development have had in the region but they should not be regarded merely as personal memories detached from the historical context o f de-industrialization and unemployment. In fact, I also questioned small-scale fishermen about their opinions regarding the current conditions o f local fisheries as well as their perceptions regarding their future conditions. In order to collect these kinds o f data, I selected ten fishermen from the fifty included in the household survey for an additional interview focused on the transformation o f fishing economy in the past fifty years. The fishermen were purposively chosen with the intention to create a representative sample from the three fishing communities studied. This procedure involved the selection o f two fishermen from each section o f Playa de Guayanilla and two fishermen from the remaining two communities so as to give coverage to all sections. The fishermen were selected according to their knowledge o f the historical transformation o f local fisheries and their reputation as successful fishermen. First, the ten fishermen were asked to describe the current conditions o f fishing in their respective communities and to compare them with conditions prevailing ten years ago. It was believed that since CODREMAR was in charge o f fisheries development programs a decade ago, fishermen could use it as a reference point. The fishermen were


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then given three choices to make a proper comparison, that is to say, that fishing conditions are currently better than ten years ago, similar to ten years ago, or worse than ten years ago. Second, fishermen were asked to respond to a question pertaining to their perceptions o f what the future conditions of local fisheries might look like, but this time I offered them five choices: I asked, “in the next ten years, do you think the fisheries will be better than ever, better than the present, just like the present, worse than the present, or worse than ever?” (see Appendix 1). In general, both questions elicited responses that validated the contention that small-scale commercial fishermen in southern Puerto Rico are currently experiencing precarious economic conditions due to acute shrinkage o f the resource base (see Matos Caraballo 1997a:21). Only one fisherman argued that the current conditions o f local fisheries are better than ten years ago, and his opinion was based on the fact that industrial pollution is no longer a major problem in the region. Another reason for his positive response was that local fishermen now receive higher prices for their catches than ever before. On the other hand, three fishermen argued that currently local fisheries are just like ten years ago (see Figure 6.2). Two o f these responses came from non-commercial fishermen in El Faro for whom fishing is not a significant economic source. It is reasonable to argue that because they do not fish commercially they are unable to render a comprehensive evaluation of fishing. Interestingly, the other fisherman in this group is the president o f the Fishermen’s Association Santo Cristo de la Salud. However, he described current fishing conditions as “regular,” meaning that they are no worse than ten years ago. The remaining six fishermen suggested that fishing is now worse than a decade ago and offered a broad set of opinions that included comments from “both fish and


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fishermen are scarce,” to “there is widespread unemployment in the region,” and “[the government] is banning almost everything.” Two important conclusions can be derived from these commentaries. First, it is clear that fishermen do not distinguish between the conditions o f the resource base (i.e. the fisheries) and the direct producers (i.e. the fishermen). In other words, whenever fisheries are doing good so are the fishermen, and vice-versa. Second, the responses that fishermen offered and their evaluations o f current and future conditions in local fisheries cannot be analyzed without taking into consideration the impact that governments’ policies and regulations have had on their lives and economic activities. Although this important issue will be further explored below, it is necessary to point out here that several regulations designed to manage species such as lobsters have affected seriously the activities o f many divers from Encamacion. A careful examination o f the responses to the question about perceptions o f current fishing conditions reveals that in every community the most successful fishermen rendered the most pessimistic evaluations. This may result from the fact that they now have to eke out a living from fishing under very constraining conditions and that, in their view, the Puerto Rican government is unlikely to amend the negative record o f failed development programs in the region. Not surprisingly, this group o f fishermen does not see an easy way out o f unemployment, decreasing productivity o f local fisheries, and reduction o f the social and economic support that governments previously offered. Future industrial operations at Eco-Electrica as well as the rehabilitation o f the fish house in Playa de Guayanilla present local fishermen with new circumstances that they do not yet clearly comprehend. Local fishermen expect that the opening o f Eco-Electrica, a power


generating plant that will use natural gas, as well as the possible rehabilitation o f the fishing facilities, will bring new opportunities in both fishing and industry. Finally, this group o f fishermen also includes individuals who considered that future economic conditions will be worse than ever. As one might expect, none o f them would have argued that local fisheries will improve in the near future.

Figure 6.2 Fishermen's perceptions of development during fieldwork in 1997 B etter than ten years ago 10%

W o rse than ten y ears ago 60 %


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On the other hand, responses to the question regarding the future conditions o f local fisheries were fairly evenly distributed among the five options offered, although there was a tendency towards a negative perception. For example, only two fishermen considered that the future conditions o f local fisheries will be better than at present, three fishermen argued they will remain the same, two fishermen suggested they will be worse than ever and three fishermen were unable to render an unambiguous response. The two fishermen who foresee a positive future live in Playa de Guayanilla and hope that the rehabilitation o f the local fish house and the likely organization o f a local fishermen’s association will help unite them in order to protect the resource base. It is worth remembering that in this community there exist political conflicts and tensions. The group o f fishermen which made ambiguous comments mentioned that “[future] conditions can improve” and “the fisheries’ productivity has dwindled a lot” (see Figure 6.3). As happened before, two o f these comments were from non-commercial fishermen living in El Faro. Such responses confirm the general perception that the future conditions of local fisheries will be worse than ever. The six fishermen who suggested the current conditions are worse than a decade ago mentioned that the future conditions will be either like those in the present or worse than the present. For this group it is perfectly clear that dismal conditions in the local fisheries will not improve in the foreseeable future. Strangely, one fisherman thought that present conditions are worse than ten years ago but that future conditions will be better than ever. This optimistic perception does not make sense if we do not put it in the context o f his earlier response regarding the rehabilitation o f the fish house in Playa de Guayanilla. He is one o f the fishermen who harbors high expectations about the possible


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rehabilitation o f the local fish house. In general, all fishermen agreed that future fishing conditions will depend on the kinds o f fisheries policies that governments implement in order to administer and manage fishery resources. For most local fishermen government agents are now more concerned with restricting their activities than promoting sustainable fisheries development.

Figure 6.3 Fishermen's perceptions of development in the next ten years

Do not know 30%

W orse than ever 20 %

Better than the present 20 %

ike the present 30%


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It is interesting to note that when fishermen evaluated the historical role o f the Puerto Rican and federal governments in the promotion o f fisheries modernization they praised state intervention and argued that it helped them acquire necessary fishing vessels and gear and raise their economic standards. Nevertheless, their evaluation o f the governments’ current roles is more negative as they blamed it for the dismal economic conditions they now have to face. One o f their major criticisms was that governments have recently implemented harsher regulations that greatly limit their access to certain fish stocks and imposed onerous requirements that most o f them are unable to carry out. Some government regulations have been mentioned already, like requirements to submit fishery statistical data in order to obtain fishing licenses. Others pertain mainly to restrictions and bans on certain species such as queen conch and land crabs. Both have decreased greatly in numbers and the Puerto Rican government has issued a regulation that restricts the season when they can be fished. Moreover, there is a prohibition on landing lobsters whose carapace measures less than 3.5 inches. According to small-scale fishermen, all these regulations and prohibitions have been developed with the goal o f forcing them out o f business. It is difficult to assess this argument because some fishermen do support government policies to regulate certain fishing gear and types in order to secure the reproduction of the resource base. Local fishermen made a strong statement against inappropriate application o f governments’ regulations when they argued, for instance, that governments do not regulate the use o f jet ski and other water sports devices with the same rigor with which they regulate commercial

fishing activities. Industrial development has rendered

the

region

unattractive for tourism, and thus jet ski and other water sports activities have started to


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proliferate only recently. Currently municipal governments are promoting tourist development in the region as a means o f increasing municipal revenues. Fishermen’s complaints that jet ski users interfere with their fishing activities will likely increase in the future. Some fishermen have accused jet ski users o f hurting manatees reproducing on the shoreline. However, field observations showed that jet skis are used only during weekends, and especially during summer festivals celebrated in the region. Needless to say, all governments regulations have had an impact on fishermen’s perceptions o f current and future conditions o f fishing. Although the future conditions do not seem promising, small-scale commercial fishermen still cling to fishing as one of their economic options. When I asked them whether they would recommend fishing to a young person, slightly more than half (54%) said they would surely recommend it, while 42% argued they would not. However, fishermen who would recommend fishing are dubious that it is a good choice only because lack o f enough employment opportunities in the region. On the other hand, they consider that fishing can keep young people busy and out o f vices such as alcohol and drug abuse. But successful fishermen were reluctant to recommend fishing and expressed rather non-romantic opinions about it. For example, they argued that fishermen suffer a lot and that nowadays fish are more scarce than ever. In most o f these cases their perceptions o f fishing as a tough job contributed to place themselves in opposition to state intervention and was used to support their belief that governments have neglected them.


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Conclusions and recapitulation Analysis of qualitative data about the fishermen’s perceptions o f economic development and conditions o f fishing disclosed results similar to those reported for Puerto Rico as a whole, namely, that small-scale commercial fisheries do not provide fishermen with an adequate source o f income. For example, in 1995-1996 the Fisheries Research Laboratory census reported that only 7% o f the commercial fishermen in Encamacion stated that conditions in local fisheries are better than before, while 47% said that conditions are still the same and another 47% said they are worse than before. In contrast, in Playa de Guayanilla the percentages were 0%, 29% and 71%, respectively. The three main reasons that fishermen used in order to explain the deterioration o f conditions in local fisheries were pollution, habitat destruction and overfishing. In Encamacion, 86% of the fishermen suggested that pollution was the main reason for bad conditions o f fisheries resources while 43% mentioned overfishing as the main reason. No fisherman mentioned habitat destruction as an important factor. On the other hand, in Guayanilla, 33% o f fishermen argued that pollution is the main reason for fish degradation and depletion while 8% argued that habitat destruction is the main cause and no one suggested overfishing (see Matos Caraballo 1997a:21). Why is there such a huge disparity between the responses that fishermen from Playa de Guayanilla and Encamacion offered if, as I have suggested, they all have been equally affected by similar governments’ fisheries development policies and regulations? One answer might be lack o f clarity in the alternatives that fisheries agents offered them. For instance, categories such as overfishing and habitat destruction are not normally used by small-scale commercial fishermen and thus they do not recognize them as having an


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impact on the resource base. Those are constructs that fisheries agents and government officials tend to use in order to describe decreasing biological and economic conditions. Fishermen are also generally aware when fisheries’ productivity dwindles but do not express it with such words. The kinds o f responses that I elicited produced totally different results. For example, the majority o f fishermen do not consider pollution as a major threat to local fisheries anymore, although they mentioned lack o f governments support as well as lack o f sophisticated equipment and gear as the two main reasons for dismal fishing conditions in the region. Other fishermen, however, mentioned lack o f unity among themselves as another important reason. Although fishermen in southern Puerto Rico offered various opinions, they all seemed to agree that current fishing conditions are truly bad and are unlikely to improve in the future. This can be readily seen in the fact that their responses portrayed a negative scenario, whether it was related to low fish productivity or governments’ neglect o f local fisheries. Fishermen’s perceptions also supported the contention I made in the previous chapter regarding the precarious situation o f household economy in the region. Smallscale commercial fishermen do not see their families’ economic conditions as disconnected from conditions affecting the resource base; they know that household incomes will improve or deteriorate according to the status o f fisheries. Fishermen’s perceptions are nuanced by their narratives about pollution and frustrating economic realities to the extent they recommend fishing only when other economic options are not readily available. As they themselves suggested, they keep on fishing because they are too old to find another job or because fishing is the only thing they have learned to do.


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Fishing holds their lives together as nothing else could. One o f fishing’s most intriguing aspects relates to the multiple identities fishermen seem to assume in various contexts. For example, describing what fishing means for him, Don Luis once told me that it is not only the occupation he knows to do best, but it also allows him to fish “without asking for [a boss’] permission nor having a formal education.” While my fieldwork confirmed that small-scale commercial fishermen are generally poor and have little or no formal education --factors which place them among the most vulnerable groups in society—they are satisfied with fishing. Fishermen’s discourse stresses the benefits o f this hard-working activity; the lack o f social and political pressures are features they employ to positively identify and differentiate fishermen from other rural laborers. It is commonplace to hear small-scale commercial fishermen utter comments about fishing both as job and a therapy that permits them to relax from everyday pressures at home and in their communities. Fishing as therapy is a cultural category seldom addressed in maritime anthropological studies, although it has been analyzed recently by some Puerto Rican scholars (see Griffith and Valdes Pizzini [forthcoming], Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson 1992, Valdes Pizzini 1992:19-24). And while fishing is the only activity they have learned to master, many fishermen stress the fact that it is a hard-working endeavor that involves too much suffering. The fact that approximately half the total number o f fishermen I interviewed in southern Puerto Rico remarked they would not like their sons becoming fishermen clearly indicates their skepticism about fishing as an occupation. When we consider that fishermen generally leam to fish with their fathers, the apparent contradictions o f their discourses surface and reveal fishing’s ambiguity. As I mentioned earlier, fishermen’s


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identity discourses take different meanings when they convey fishing’s meaningful contributions to their household economy and when they discuss government intervention. In the

latter case,

fishermen generally represent

themselves as occupying

a

disadvantageous or subordinate position that underscores their dispossession and vulnerability. For good or bad, industrial development has ceased to be a viable economic alternative. Local fishermen now have to confront the effects o f de-industrialization and de-proletarianization. In this chapter, I have discussed how fishermen’s perceptions o f development have been based on industrial development’s effects on the region since the mid-1950s. The promotion o f industrial development along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays allowed fishermen to find temporary employment, especially in construction, but it also led to resource degradation. The fishermen, however, consider that industrialization has had many positive outcomes because it broadened their opportunities to engage in wage labor and to improve their economic well being. They also remember fondly that commercial activities increased when petrochemical and oil refineries began operating in the region. But many other fishermen highlighted industrialization’s negative outcomes. Not surprisingly, fishermen who benefitted the most from industries located in close proximity to their communities praised the changes brought about by industrialization while those who rarely worked in the industrial complexes tended to criticize it more harshly. Fishing indeed presents an ambiguous order o f things, both for fishermen who depend on it to generate a source o f income and social scientists who try to understand its dynamics. It has been mentioned that fishermen’s incomplete incorporation into capitalist


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relations o f production is partly a result o f unequal capitalist development in Puerto Rico (see, for example, Griffith, Valdes Pizzini and Johnson 1992). Small-scale commercial fishermen combined wage labor with fishing when industrial jobs were available, and then relied more on fishing when industrial employment disappeared. This dynamic helps explain why the most successful fishermen generally made the harshest criticisms and were more reluctant to recommend fishing to a younger person as a reliable economic alternative. But, as they argued, what are they going to do in light o f scarce economic options available locally? They know they might be better off fishing for, even though it is currently in crisis, small-scale commercial fishing will always provide them with opportunities to feed their families.


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1. There was an attempt to use the building and other facilities to promote a small shrimp aquaculture project financed by Chinese capital. However, it was also abandoned shortly after starting operations. 2.

In late December 1999 the Puerto Rican government announced its plans to build a superport on the southern coast o f the island. At least fifteen municipalities are vying for the project. Ponce and Guayanilla appear to have an edge in this competition because o f the industrial infrastructure already in existence in the area. Ponce has outstanding port facilities as well as improved highways and an airport while Guayanilla has a natural bay and varied industrial infrastructure that once belonged to the petrochemical complex. Such infrastructure needs to be rehabilitated. Both Great Britain and the Netherlands have shown interest in constructing superport facilities on the island.

3.

Interview conducted on November 3, 1997.

4.

Interview conducted on October 10, 1997.

5. Interview conducted on September 25, 1997. 6. Interview conducted on September 26, 1997. 7. Interview conducted on November 3, 1997. 8. Interview conducted on September 27, 1997. 9. Interview conducted on November 3, 1997.


Chapter 7

Conclusion: Going with the flow?: Ethnography, alternatives, and the politics of post-development regimes of representation

What is at stake is the movement o f critical anthropology into conversation with policy studies and operations. Here the task o f translation consists in making visible and conscious across domains the intertwined histories o f conceptual frameworks that powerfully orient cognitions, practices, and senses o f problems.

George Marcus, 1998:206

In

the

concluding

chapter

of

Encountering

Development,

Colombian

anthropologist Arturo Escobar (1995) invites us to imagine a post-development era. Much of what development programs have accomplished in so-called Third World countries has been the reproduction o f European domination patterns and outright dispossession o f local communities’ capacity to promote their own ideals and models o f economic development. But perhaps more significantly, according to Escobar (1995), has been the creation o f a regime o f representation whereby local cultures and communities

252


253

in Africa, Asia and Latin America are constructed as being in infinite need of international technical assistance and support to help them achieve the goals that industrialized nations deem more appropriate. The consolidation o f development discourses, which have been the force guiding international development policies for global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, has also contributed to the creation o f compartmentalized sectors and categories that legitimize foreign aid, like women in development, sustainable development and even development and environmental conservation. Until the mid-1980s, the premises on which development discourses rest went unchallenged but since the early 1990s, with the emergence o f post-modem regimes o f representation and critical discourses, development has been attacked from multiple academic and political angles. Nowadays

its

conventional

promises

and

illusions

--economic

growth,

technological sophistication, increased urbanization rates, sustained consumption levels, and a wide range o f social and cultural changes— are held incapable o f improving the living standards o f communities and groups that it intended to help. In part as a result of this condition, as well as o f the political and economic transformations o f the world capitalist economy since the late 1980s, there has been growing skepticism that development can ever lead to sustained growth output, at least to the degree that the industrialized countries desire. In many areas o f Africa, Asia and Latin America, where modernization and development economics have not replaced entirely the cultural, social and political institutions o f so-called traditional societies, local communities exhibit a combination o f pre-modem, modem, and even post-modem forms o f social and political organization (Escobar 1995:217-222, see also Garcia Canclini 1995). In general, the


254

expansion o f the world capitalist economy, far from erasing the elements o f cultural difference in many regions o f the non-Westem world, has increased the presence o f varied forms o f cultural and political organization that further complicates the models o f economic

development devised

by

international organizations.

Put

differently,

multilateral lending institutions have had to re-examine their priorities in order to give more attention to the particularities o f cultural, economic, and socio-political configurations in local communities. Similarly, social science scholars have also had to revisit the theories, models and paradigms that formerly helped them explain why a good part o f the world economy has not followed the economic development trends observed in Western Europe and North America. Will the multilateral lending institutions and industrialized nations be willing to modify the frameworks of development discourse and development practices in order to suit the needs of local communities? Will social scientists and development practitioners accept the fact that new modes o f representation and political practice are needed in order to grasp the complexities o f economic development taking place at local levels? Post development critics do not envision that such major re-definition o f the priorities, goals and tenements of development discourses will be achieved in the near future. Instead, some o f them suggest that it is better to look for alternatives to development rather than proposing development alternatives or, in the words o f Escobar (1995:215) “the rejection o f the entire [development] paradigm altogether.” At first hand, this suggestion seems plausible but it also raises legitimate questions and doubts about what alternatives to development might be and where they might come from. Not surprisingly, post development criticism has generated renewed interest in discourses o f economic


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development that have tended to polarize the debate into supporters (see, for example, Gardner and Lewis 1996, Goulet 1999) and detractors (see Escobar 1995, Ferguson 1990, Lara 1999, Muniz Varela 1999, Rahnema and Brawtree 1997, Sachs 1992). Although post-development studies are comprised of varied groups o f scholars and political activists with different interests and ideological persuasions, they tend to agree that it is no longer possible to study economic development using theories and paradigms predominant during the 1950s and 1960s. As a general rule, they seem to agree that new social class, ethnic, race, and gender subjectivities have to be understood and accounted for through the construction o f more innovative regimes o f representation. One path that alternatives to development might follow is to focus on the study o f social movements that can lead to the emergence o f new forms o f political organization in local communities. Within the context o f de-centralized political decisions, as well as heightened awareness o f the role and responsibilities o f local communities in the design o f such alternatives, new arrangements for the relationship between political organization and mobilization in communities and state intervention in local affairs can promote collaborative grounds for engaging in empirical research and committed ethnographic work. Imagining a post-development era has already recast the study o f economic development issues, state intervention and community research in new, different, and provocative ways (see, for instance, Ferguson 1990). Ethnographic representation is also giving way to more encompassing and innovative forms o f cultural descriptions that explore local and global interactions o f economic and political systems and the power o f discourses, theoretical models, and paradigms of academic knowledge. The production o f multi-sited ethnographies, as Marcus (1998) has called it, must be sensitive to the


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location o f research subjects (i.e., in and beyond local fishing communities) as well as various levels o f government intervention (i.e., the creation and implementation o f fisheries policies and regulations). The field research on which this dissertation is based has sought to juxtapose various research methodologies in order to investigate changing conditions o f fisheries development policies and programs in Puerto Rico since the early 1940s. Fisheries development policies do not exist solely in governmental offices where they were originally conceived and its analysis has thus been framed in a historically grounded set o f principles, discourses and practices that helped guide the Puerto Rican and United States governments’ efforts at incorporating the local fishing communities into grand models o f national economic development. Development as discourse and practice also exists in the historical archives and municipal libraries that guard its secrets, promises and illusions, in government offices that have nurtured and shaped its contours as well as fishing communities where development programs have been implemented. This dissertation has integrated multiple loci o f development discourses and practices into a comprehensive framework that has expanded the limits o f fishing communities beyond their fixed residential and working boundaries and government agencies’ beyond their image as monolithic temples o f grandiose planning. In general, this dissertation should not be conceived as an ethnographic study of a fishing region, governments’ roles, or set o f public institutions. Instead, its purpose has been to document, interrogate, and analyze the multiple efforts that the Puerto Rican and United States governments have undertaken in order to transform the island’s fishing industry since the early 1940s. In order to do so, I have emphasized primarily the role that both the federal and Puerto Rican governments


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played in the creation o f various development programs and policies to transform socalled traditional fisheries into modem commercial enterprises. In chapter 3, I rendered a detailed analysis o f the forms that state intervention in local fishing communities have taken since the early days o f United States colonial rule in Puerto Rico. I argued that, until the 1930s, the federal government was concerned with the underdeveloped condition o f Puerto Rico’s fisheries and limited its role to conducting various explorations and surveys. Such explorations did little to improve the island’s fisheries but did constitute the first attempts to know and catalogue Puerto Rican (and Caribbean) fisheries and turn them into objects o f scientific study and state intervention. In addition, they also established the bases for the design and implementation o f inchoate fisheries development programs that began in the early 1940s. The early efforts, which began around 1934 and ended after World War II, also helped institutionalize state intervention in the affairs o f local communities. These involved the creation o f several government agencies and programs to address fisheries development as well as the creation o f policies and regulations to strengthen the fisheries, especially as a major component o f the production and distribution o f foodstuffs during times o f scarcity and deprivation (see Ortiz Cuadra 1996). Fisheries development efforts carried out since the early 1940s clearly distinguished state interventions from colonial explorations and surveys.

State

intervention during this period was characterized by infusions o f large amounts o f money to modernize fishing technologies and transform the visual appearance o f communities where fishermen worked and lived. It was also characterized by the creation o f a knowledge apparatus based on fisheries policies and regulations to manage commercial


258

fishing activities in the island. The new role was defined by the relationship established between government agents and local fishermen, which categorized small-scale commercial fishermen as political subjects brought together as a unified labor force. The construction o f fishing communities as residential and working areas, even though their boundaries remained fluid and open to external influences, facilitated the intervention o f the Puerto Rican and United States governments. Coordinated government efforts to approve laws in order to regulate fishing practices and set up a knowledge apparatus intensified during the 1950s and led to a process I have labeled parallel institutionalism. This concept helped me analyze the creation o f a knowledge apparatus, construction o f basic infrastructure to conduct fishing operations, and extension o f economic and technical assistance as parallel institutional processes to guide state intervention in local communities. Parallel institutionalism, however, has to be understood as a discontinuous process due to the fact that most fisheries development programs endured for relatively short periods o f time. Needless to say, this made it more difficult to meet objectives. A clear example can be seen in the way governments approached small-scale commercial fishermen’s practices. For instance, during the early 1940s, when the first fisheries policies and regulations were implemented, small-scale commercial fishermen became the targets o f direct state intervention. The Puerto Rican government followed this approach for the majority o f rural and coastal laborers were affected by similar socio economic conditions related to high levels o f poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy. During the 1950s, both the federal and Puerto Rican governments considered the possibility o f establishing an industrial fishing fleet and abandoned momentarily their concerns with


259

economic development in local fishing communities (see O’Brien 1972, Suarez Caabro 1979).

Finally, when they realized it was impossible to develop an offshore fishing

industry (and that they would have to invest substantial amounts o f money to accomplish it) they returned to the more modest goal o f improving the conditions o f small-scale fishing throughout the island. The combination o f acute lack o f capital and poor coordination among government agencies rendered fisheries development programs incapable o f improving the economic well being o f most small-scale commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico. I have also mentioned that fisheries development programs did transform socalled traditional fishing practices. The construction and improvement o f basic infrastructure in all fishing centers, upgrading o f fishing vessels and technologies, and creation o f the fishermen’s associations were the main results o f state intervention during the 1960s. But although the Puerto Rican government accomplished the goals o f fisheries modernization programs, it was unable to promote local accumulation o f capital. Instead, it contributed to increase fishermen’s dependence on government economic and technical assistance. Small-scale commercial fishermen were subsumed in the politics o f fishing and they became an undifferentiated social class that, much to government agents’ surprise, did not produce the positive results they intended. In many fishing communities, large numbers o f fishermen continued to fish independently and remained highly skeptical o f the fishermen’s associations’ goals. During my field research in 1997, a fisherman from Playa de Guayanilla strongly disapproved the goals o f the local association arguing it does more harm than good. On the other hand, the problems o f the fishermen’s associations Brisas del Caribe and Santo Cristo de la Salud discussed in


260

Chapter 4 provide good examples o f the contradictions that may arise (and have arisen in many fishing communities) when associations are poorly run. Still their history may shed some light on problematic circumstances o f economic production in fishing communities shaken by political tensions and disputes. It seems to me that in Playa de Guayanilla, where the fishermen’s association disappeared after slightly more than a decade of operation, the Commonwealth and municipal governments overlooked existing political cleavages in the community and the association was unable to circumvent deep tensions that had fractured community relations even before its establishment. The local fishermen’s association was thus an artificial mechanism that reduced political tensions for a brief period o f time and eventually exacerbated discordant relationships among different groups o f fishermen. As I discussed in Chapter 4, more conspicuous problems such as the mismanagement o f funds and economic hardships that commercial fishermen confronted to repay government loans mired adequate functioning of the fishermen’s association. When viewed in light o f these aspects, the role o f state intervention takes on different dimensions. It is true that the Puerto Rican government had a comprehensive fisheries modernization plan but its implementation was rather inconsistent and unstable. This, in fact, has been a major criticism o f fisheries development programs in Puerto Rico that must be tackled in order to promote more adequate development and co-management frameworks. The future of small-scale commercial fishing may well reside in sound marine resources conservation, administration and co-management, tasks that necessarily entail the integration of all natural resource users in development and co-management programs. In Puerto Rico and other areas o f the Caribbean, such efforts have been


261

undertaken only recently and it is still premature to assess their potential for the promotion of sustainable development (see Jentoft and McCay 1995, Jentoft and Sandersen 1996, McCay and Jentoft 1996, Valdes Pizzini 1990b). The responses o f institutions concerned with the promotion and management o f small-scale commercial fisheries in Puerto Rico to problems related to overfishing, access to fishing areas, and industrial pollution in coastal zones have been slow and inadequate. From interviews about the role that government agencies must undertake in this regard, I found out that the Puerto Rican government still lacks a clear policy or plan to accomplish these goals. Most existing programs hinge on regulation and prohibition o f certain fishing gear in order to protect some fish species threatened by overfishing and pollution as well as restriction o f fishermen’s activities to certain seasons and fishing spots. Given the fact that small-scale fishing productivity in Puerto Rico is very low, and commercial fishermen do not have many employment options outside fishing, such regulations and prohibitions represent a serious hindrance to the economic reproduction of many fishermen’s household. The creation o f sustainable fisheries development, administration and co-management models will surely redefine the relationships that the federal and Puerto Rican governments engage in with fishing communities. Perhaps a promising aspect o f the new relationship may be to understand the ways in which commercial fishermen and natural resource users in general are incorporated into the frameworks of development, administration and co-management. It is not surprising that one o f the most neglected aspects of fisheries development in Puerto Rico has been precisely lack o f fishermen’s input in this process.


262

The era o f fisheries development based on direct state intervention has come to a close. Increasing fishing productivity during the 1970s was a result o f rapid and effective capitalization and modernization o f so-called traditional fisheries. But it also led to unintended outcomes such as rapid depletion o f some fish stocks with high commercial value for local fishermen. This has been the reality o f fisheries development programs put in place since the late 1950s both in Puerto Rico and elsewhere around the world (see The Times Picayune 1996). For the three fishing communities in southern Puerto Rico that I studied, overfishing and coastal resources degradation were also results o f rapid industrial development. One o f the main contentions o f this dissertation has been that discontinuous fisheries development policies in southern Puerto Rico must be studied in light o f rapid economic and cultural modernization. With the transition from agricultural to industrial development implementation o f fisheries development programs slowed and, more importantly, the fishermen’s lives and work experiences altered dramatically. In Chapter 6, I discussed industrialization’s relevance for improving the economic conditions o f many fishermen’s households. Rapid industrial development also helped intensify semi proletarianization and de-proletarianization processes among small-scale commercial fishermen. I also argued in Chapter 6 that rapid industrial development has been a key factor influencing fishermen’s perceptions of economic development. According to fishermen themselves, future economic conditions in southern Puerto Rico will be seriously affected by current constructions that denote changing governments’ roles. This situation has already begun to produce interesting results in regards to their evaluations o f fisheries development, administration and co-management programs on the island. The majority of small-scale commercial fishermen considered


263

that governments should provide more economic assistance to help them raise their economic standards and the productivity o f commercial fisheries as well. However, as I mentioned earlier, the Puerto Rican government has retreated from this role. In addition, local fishermen have also argued in favor o f more lenient fishing regulations and prohibitions and against what they consider unfair treatment of commercial fishing practices (in contrast to the practices o f other natural resource users like sport fishermen). It is clear that the fishermen’s discourses always tend to stress their vulnerable position in order to represent themselves as a disadvantaged social group or class. The region studied is already experiencing important social and economic transformations that will certainly impact (once again) fishermen’s lives and work trajectories. Another major contribution o f this dissertation is to have documented social, economic and political processes of change at a transitional moment, that is to say, in the middle o f an uncertain period for the fishing communities located along Guayanilla and Tallaboa Bays. I documented the transformation o f so-called traditional fisheries in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion since the Puerto Rican government first intervened in the early 1940s. The few ethnographies and social science studies conducted in the region (see Blay 1972, Lucca Irizarry 1981) provided little information about conditions before or during government intervention and industrial development. I was also struck by lack o f information and social science research about the implications o f the petrochemical and industrial complexes for the growth o f Puerto Rico’s economy (although some remarkable exceptions exist [see Baver 1993 and Pantojas Garcia 1990]) and the development o f militant labor unions and working class struggles. Why is there such historical oblivion in regards to the contributions that industrial workers and


264

fishermen who found employment in local factories made to the Puerto Rican economy and the history o f the labor movement? W hat do the fragments o f memory I collected from small-scale commercial fishermen have to say about the rapid economic and cultural modernization in Puerto Rico since the early 1950s? The study o f Puerto Rico’s modernization and modernity is still in the making and I would suggest this study is to be found among everyday struggles for survival and decent living that laboring and popular classes have continuously engaged. Such study has to be constructed from the narratives, practices and memories o f the individuals most affected by modernization programs. This has been my intention in (re)constructing the transformation o f small-scale fishing practices in Playa de Guayanilla, El Faro and Encamacion, three fishing settlements that have endured the painful process o f adjusting to the demands o f global capitalist development. Fishermen’s memories and narratives are not only fragmented because o f their disillusion with the outcomes o f economic development processes imposed from the top-down but, more significantly, because they still harbor nostalgic recollections and longings for a better future. If fisheries development in Puerto Rico has failed thus far to improve their economic well-being, it is necessary for fishermen to imagine a different set o f conditions where their precarious livelihoods are not threatened. Puerto Rico’s modernization and modernity have to be studied, as Brunner (1992:160) has suggested, without falling into the trap o f reclaiming and reproducing previous theoretical paradigms that stifled creative engagements of theory and political practice and must combine empirical research with the ethnographic representations o f worldviews, lives and working experiences o f the individuals we seek to understand. But, in contrast to a major argument that post-development critics have


265

proposed, ethnographic representation of fishermen’s subjectivities should not constitute anthropology’s primary goal. Post-development studies are still an inchoate set o f critiques and are in desperate need of constructing a consistent theoretical model. It must transcend the practice o f firing shots at anything resembling modernist paradigms o f political thinking and action. Perhaps the alternatives that it hopes to build (truly necessary in order to face the harsh realities of global capitalist development) are to be found in political practices created by peoples that post-development critics are so eager to represent. Representation for socalled post-modernist authors and ethnographers often means the construction o f political subjectivities for detached academic scrutiny. Put differently, why is it necessary to make better representations o f rural communities fully integrated to global capitalism when alternatives to local political organization and practice have shrunk tremendously in the last few decades? How can ethnographic representation help us to grasp better the dynamics of economic transformations, cultural processes o f change at local and global levels, and interactions between nations, peoples and systems o f communication? Cultural anthropologists must have something to say about recent transformations in the world capitalist economy and its influence on the lives o f local populations. Perhaps all alternatives for ethnographic representation o f political subjectivities should not be hastily discarded. Maybe feasible alternatives are to be found in the calloused hands o f the small-scale fishermen who still pull their fishing nets to safe harbors in their communities. Soon after I began field research among small-scale commercial fishermen in southern Puerto Rico, I realized that local communities present rich cases for assessing the outcomes of national and international economic development models. Not only did I


266

become acquainted with the ways that fisheries development programs in the region have influenced, transformed, and modified fishermen’s lives and the coastal landscapes. More importantly, my own perceptions o f maritime cultures and adaptations, heavily influenced by my readings about small-scale fishing in regions far from Puerto Rico, had conditioned to a great extent the biases that surfaced during those conversations. It was evident that my initial interpretations coincided neatly with conventional anthropological representations of small-scale fishing as a unique experience o f rural coastal laborers. After prolonged interaction with commercial fishermen, in which I became accustomed to listen to their lively anecdotes, I realized that their narratives and discourses also helped me expand and enhance my fledgling understandings o f small-scale fishing. The passion with which they talked about their lives and work experiences contrasted sharply with the rigor and eloquence of anthropological representations of maritime adaptations I had read before conducting field research in southern Puerto Rico. Among the most remarkable representations was that small-scale fishermen are generally poor and have little or no formal education, which place them among the most vulnerable groups in society. These and other aspects o f their livelihoods, while usually grounded in conditions observed in fishing communities, also contribute to misrepresent the smallscale fishermen as apathetic subjects with little motivation to innovate and adapt to sweeping processes o f cultural and economic modernization. As Don Luis argued on various occasions, lacking a formal education, as well as carrying out fishing without constraints imposed by social and political pressures, are indeed positive features that identify (and thus separate) them from other rural laborers. This description also points to


267

the problematic task o f rendering fixed and constraining definitions of small-scale commercial fishermen’s adaptations, lives and work trajectories. The most important lesson I obtained from my fieldwork was to value and respect the fishermen’s courage and tenacity. These are qualities that help them confront economic hardships and envision the likely improvement o f their well being. But the future conditions in local fisheries will depend on the creation o f new models o f state intervention and to what extent fisheries policies integrate fishermen’s input and opinions. The story o f Don Luis with which I opened this dissertation attests to the challenges that the Puerto Rican and United States governments currently face as they try to amend the mistakes and mishaps o f past experiences.


APPENDIX l 1

ESTUDIO SOBRE LA HISTORIA DE LA PESCA Y PERCEPCIONES DE DESARROLLO PESQUERO EN LAS COMUNIDADES PESQUERAS DE GUAYANILLA Y PENUELAS

Ricardo Perez Figueroa Departamento de Antropologla Universidad de Connecticut

EXPLICACION DEL ESTUDIO Y SOLICITUD DE COOPERACION Y PARTICIPACION POR PARTE DE LOS PESCADORES

Luego de haber realizado el censo de Pescadores durante los primeros meses del aiio, lo hemos seleccionado para hacer esta entrevista por sus cualidades como un pescador con mucho conocimiento sobre esta comunidad y sobre la condition de la pesca en la zona. De igual forma, usted es un pescador conocido y muy respetado por sus companeros y vecinos que nos puede ensenar muchas cosas sobre algunos temas de los cuales no hablamos durante la primera entrevista. En esta ocasion me interesa hacer una reconstruction historica para conocer como era esta comunidad en el pasado, como ha ido cambiando al pasar de los afios y cual es la situation pesquera actualmente. Tambien

1 I used this interview guide in order to collect data about the historical transform ation o f the local fisheries, analyzed in Chapter 4, as well as the fishermen’s perceptions o f developm ent, analyzed in Chapter 6. Due to the fact that interviews were conducted in Spanish, the interview guide is presented here in the original version.

268


269

me gustaria conocer sus opiniones sobre diversos aspectos relacionados con el futuro de la pesca (y de los Pescadores) en esta region de la isla. Nosotros ya hemos hablado de algunas de las cosas que me interesa saber sobre la historia de la comunidad y de la condicion pesquera de la zona. Sin embargo, hay otras cosas sobre las cuales no hemos hablado todavia, o hemos hablado muy poco, y aun me interesa conocer. La informacion que usted me brinde ahora sera de mucha ayuda para conocer mejor esta comunidad que he estado visitando frecuentemente durante los ultimos meses.

Para llevar a cabo esta entrevista, es necesario que usted pueda recordar situaciones, sucesos, y las condiciones de vida en esta comunidad durante los ultimos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Como sabemos que muchos de ustedes han nacido y se han criado en esta comunidad y otros, aunque han nacido en otros lugares, llevan muchos anos viviendo aqui, solo le pedire que se transporten a esos tiempos pasados. La informacion y detalles que usted pueda recordar sobre las familias que aqui residian, el trabajo o tareas que ellos llevaban a cabo, asi como la condicion pesquera, nos ayudara a comprender mejor la vida y trabajo de los residentes de esta comunidad. Mientras mas detalles usted pueda recordar mas nos ayudara a entender la forma en que esta comunidad ha cambiado hasta llegar a nuestros dias. El proposito de este estudio es conocer mejor la historia de la pesca en esta comunidad, aprender de ustedes sobre el trabajo realizado por los Pescadores y comunicar a otras personas y generaciones la importancia de la pesca para la gran cantidad de familias que dependen de ella para sus sutento. Tambien espero que al terminar este estudio podamos contribuir a mejorar la condicion de la pesca y de los Pescadores de Puerto Rico.


270

Quiero grabar esta entrevista para luego volverla a escuchar y estudiar con mas detenimiento. A1 igual, que la primera vez, su participacion en este estudio es voluntaria y usted puede dejar de hacerlo cuando quiera. Del mismo modo, le quiero recordar que nadie tendra acceso a los datos e informacion que usted me brinde y que yo no voy a divulgar esta informacion de forma individual.

Com unidad_____________

Municipio

Fecha

Hora

L u gar de la entrevista__________________

Numero

Nom bre del pescador____________________


271

I. DATOS HISTORICOS SOBRE LAS COMUNIDADES PESQUERAS

l.

Me gustaria conocer mas sobre la historia de esta comunidad. Por ejemplo, cuando se fundo y como ha cambiado a traves de los afios. Quisiera que usted hablara acerca de quienes fueron las primeras familias que se establecieron aqui. (En el caso de Playa Guayanilla, pregunta el nombre de la seccion de la comunidad)

2. Usted podria decirme de donde provenia su familia y las otras que se establecieron primero en esta comunidad?

3. Donde se ubicaron las primeras familias que vivieron aqui? (Vivian cerca de la costa, cerca de los mangles, cerca del carlo, o en otro lugar?) Donde se ubico su familia?

4. Despues que su familia se establecio en esta comunidad, vinieron otras familias a vivir aqui? Quienes eran?

5. Usted me podria decir a que se dedicaba su familia y las otras que se establecieron primero en esta comunidad?


272

6. Trabajaba la gente de esta comunidad para la Central Rufina?_______ Quienes eran? Que tareas hacian estas personas alb? (Pide una descripcion del trabajo)

7.

Que horario tem'an?

Cuanto ganaban?

8. Trabajaba la gente de esta comunidad para los colonos? Quienes eran? Que tareas hacian estas personas alii? (Pide una descripcion del trabajo)

9.

Que h o r a r i o tem'an?

Cuanto ganaban?

to. Habia familias que tuvieran huertos caseros? _________ Que sembraban ellos en e s o s h u e r to s?

11. Un dato muy interesante en esta comunidad es el de los barcos que llegaban a recoger la cana de azucar en el muelle que habia en la playa. Usted podria decirme quienes trabajaban alii? (En los muelles o en los barcos?)


273

12. Que tipo de trabajo hacian ellos alii? (Pide una descripcion del trabajo)

13. Cual era el horario de trabajo?

Cuanto ganaban?

14. Vamos a hablar ahora sobre otros temas relacionados como, por ejemplo, el establecimiento de las petroquimicas y las refinerias de petroleo en la Bahia de Guayanilla y la Bahia de Tallaboa. Que paso aqui cuando vinieron las petroquimicas y las refinerias de petroleo?

15. Quienes trabajaban en las petroquimicas? Trabajo usted o algun familiar suyo alii?

16. Que tipo de trabajo hacian en las petroquimicasi? (Pide una descripcion del trabajo)

17. Para que companias trabajaban?


274

18.

Que horario tem'an?

Cuanto ganaban?

19. Como se pusieron las cosas aqui cuando las petroquimicas estaban operando? Economicamente, las cosas mejoraron o se quedaron igual?

20. Que efectos favorables tuvieron las petroquimicas para los residentes de la comunidad, en particular, y para la zona, en general? Hubo efectos negativos?

21. Usted conoce algo sobre las salinas que estan en Tallaboa?_______ Cuando se hicieron?

22. De que forma operaban las salinas?

23.

Quienes trabajaban alii? Que horario tenian?

Cuanto ganaban?


275

24. Cuando cerraron las salinas?

II.

Que paso cuando cerraron?

DATOS SOBRE LA CONDICION PESQUERA EN LAS COMUNIDADES

25. Ahora me gustaria que usted describa como era la condicion de la pesca para las decadas del 1940 y el 1950. Por ejemplo, cuantos Pescadores habia en esta (seccion de la) comunidad y quienes pescaban?

26. Que artes de pesca tenian?

27. Puede describir las embarcaciones? (Largo, material, usaban remos, vela, motores)

28. Que especies de pescado abundaban? Cuales se cogian mas?

29. A quienes ustedes le vendian el pescado? (Habia pescaderias, compradores, regatones, etc)


276

30. Como vendian el pescado en esta comunidad? (Fresco, congelado, limpio, salado, ahumado, etc) (Pregunta tambien por los precios de las especies de pescado y marisco)

31. Antes se pescaba mas o se pescaba menos que ahora?

32. Que paso con la pesca de la zona cuando se construyeron y empezaron a funcionar las petroquimicas y refinerias de petroleo en la zona de la bahia? (Mejoro, se quedo igual o empeoro?)

33. Como se afectaron los mangles y demas recuros marinos? (Pregunta por los cayos, los yerbales, los arrecifes, etc)

34. Como se afecto la salud de los residentes de esta comunidad durante el tiempo que las petroquimicas y las refinerias de petroleo operaban aqui?

35. Que paso con la pesca de la zona despues que las petroquimicas y refinerias de petroleo cerraron?


277

36. Tambien estaba interesado en conocer la historia de la villa pesquera y la Asociacion de Pescadores de esta comunidad. Usted me podria decir cuando se construyo la villa pesquera?

37. Que agencia de gobiemo ayudo a construirla? (Accion Comunal, ASPIRA) De que forma le ayudaron? Les ofrecierion capacitacion, cursos, conferencias, literature, prestamos, motores, equipo?

38. Con que facilidades pesqueras contaban ustedes en aquel momento?

39. En aquel momento estaban ustedes organizados en una asociacion de Pescadores o en una cooperativa? Que tipo de organizacion tenian?

40. Me gustaria que usted me explicara cuando y como fiie que aqui se organizo la Asociacion de Pescadores?

41. Cuantos Pescadores pertenecian a ella en el momento de la fimdacion?


278

42. Que agenda de gobiemo les ayudo a organizarse como Asociacion de Pescadores? De que forma les ayudaron?

43. Ahora quisiera que me explicara como estaba organizada y funcionaba la Asociacion de Pescadores de esta comunidad.

44. Si usted tuviera la oportunidad de hacer una Asociacion o Cooperativa de Pescadores, como la haria? Que caracteristicas tendria?

[Las preguntas 45 a la 49 son solo para los Pescadores de la Playa de Guayanilla] 45. Usted me podria explicar cuales fueron las razones para que la Asociacion de Pescadores de esta comunidad desapareciera o fuera eliminada?

46. Esta usted al tanto de los planes del gobiemo municipal de rehabilitar la villa pesquera en esta comunidad?

47. Como usted se entero de estos planes? Han venido ellos a la comunidad? Los han invitado a reuniones o conferencias?


279

48. Que cree usted que pasara cuando se rehabilite la villa pesquera? Cree usted que la condicion pesquera en esta comunidad mejorara? Porque?

III. PERCEPCIONES SOBRE LA CONDICION DE LA PESCA Y DESARROLLO PESQUERO

49. Como usted calificaria la condicion de la pesca (y de los Pescadores) en esta comunidad al presente? [Explique porque] Mejor que diez anos atras________ Igual que diez anos atras ________ Peor que diez anos atras_________

50. Como considera usted que va a ser la situacion de la pesca (y de los Pescadores) en esta comunidad en los proximos diez anos? [Explique porque] Mejor que nunca___________ Mejor que el presente________ Igual que el presente_________ Peor que el presente_________ Peor que nunca_____________

51. En su opinion, cual debe ser el papel de las agendas de gobiemo en los asuntos pesqueros de esta comunidad?

52. Si usted trabajara en alguna de las agencias de gobiemo donde se tratan los asuntos pesqueros del pais, que haria para mejorar la condicion de la pesca y de los P esca d ores?


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