After the Syndicates: Contamination and Collective Action in Remote Fishing Communities in Southern Chile

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Abstract

This paper examines the re-emergence of community defense and collective action in the face of the ongoing contamination of the fisheries around the island community of Puerto Aguirre, at the epicenter of Chile’s salmon aquaculture frontier. In this community, three hours from the mainland, leaders have framed recent environmental disasters—in particular the closure of their fishing grounds by the Ministry of Health due to record levels of dangerous red tide—as a symptom of the state’s indifference to all islanders, regardless of whether they continue to fish. This directly challenges the state policy that only those actively enrolled with the National Service for Fishing and Aquaculture (SERNAPESCA) receive compensation for livelihoods lost with the closure of the fishery and indirectly challenges the larger state project of regulating the fishing sector. The research presented here, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, investigates first, how protagonists in the Chilean public sphere, recalling Chile’s history of political division and repression, position themselves as moderates seeking compromise, even in times of crisis, and second, how they undermine state policy and articulate claims for compensation based on community membership and shared vulnerability.

Author

• Eric H Thomas, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill