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Paper short abstract:

The Governance of marine resources has been criticized for being a potential threat to the continuity of coastal artisanal fishing communities. We examine how the fishing laws and their assumptions are consequential for local narratives about the past, present and future of fishing.

Paper long abstract:

The Governance of marine resources integrates laws that restrict several artisanal fishing activities, and have been criticized for being a potential threat to the continuity of coastal artisanal fishing communities. Past-present discontinuity has been presented in the psychosocial literature as identity-threatening and negative, yet some research also points to its usefulness in the positive (re-)construction of identities. To examine how the discontinuities brought by the laws and their assumptions are consequential for local identities and narratives about the past, present and future of fishing, we interviewed artisanal fishers and seafood collectors (n=39) from a coastal protected area in the southwest of Portugal. We investigated whether fishers' accounts of discontinuity with the past are (1) presented as negative or positive experiences; (2) mobilized to legitimize or delegitimize the ideas incorporated in the laws. Individual and group interviews were analyzed in two phases. First, a lexicometric analysis identified the main themes around which the interviews were organized. Second, we explored how discontinuities were mobilized across the themes, reconstructing local narratives to examine what functions these discontinuities fulfilled in taking positions towards the laws. Overall the assumption of a local contribution for fish scarcity is questioned and the discontinuity brought by the laws are characterized as negative and disruptive of the local way of life; yet, discontinuity is also sometimes presented as necessary: it accommodates changes (in tools and fishing conditions) that allow the continuity of the fishing activity, and opens space for identity negotiation and the integration of new meanings and actions required by the laws.