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Paper short abstract

Humans must adapt to climate change in relation with other species. Fishers compete with seals and invasive species for declining fish stocks. Changes in foodweb dynamics reverberate through fishers’ social networks, necessitating commons thinking and relational understandings of food sovereignty.

Paper long abstract

In the face of multiple social and ecological crises, rural communities pursue food sovereignty to secure livelihoods. In an era of climate change, however, humans must navigate livable futures in relation to all other species with whom they co-inhabit the landscape. I bring into conversation insights from my work with organic farmers in Latvia and Costa Rica with my current research with small scale coastal fishers on the Baltic Sea coast. While farmers negotiate new relationships with their land, seeds, and each other, often in cooperation with other species in the landscape, the move from land to sea illuminates crucial tensions that arise in the more-than-human dimensions of our understandings of food sovereignty. Fishers are differently entwined in webs of interspecies relationships. They find themselves competing for declining fish stocks with growing populations of grey seals and invasive fish species like the round goby, who are also seeking new territories as they adapt to climate change. Each shift in food web dynamics reverberates through fishers’ social networks as they navigate EU fishing quotas, new technologies, markets, and marine conservation rules. In addition, coastal fishers are increasingly at odds with proposed new marine conservation areas and offshore wind parks. Relational understandings of adaptation may reveal opportunities to redefine practices through shared responsibilities and reciprocity. I contemplate possibilities for common understandings of adaption, interdependence, and multispecies food sovereignty in a polarized world and increasingly divided sea.