Examining the intersections of place-making and development for fisheries policy, Pribilof Islands, Alaska, 2015

This project describes how relational place-making, with its focus on power dynamics, networked politics, and non-market, locally-valued characteristics, provides a useful framework for managers to better design fishing community policies. Social data, while becoming more common in fisheries management analyses, are typically restricted to quantitative measures that often cannot adequately summarize dynamics within fishing communities. In contrast, detailed ethnographic research and the theoretical framework of relational place-making can provide a useful methodology through which to gather social data to understand resource-dependent communities and the effects of fisheries management policies in these places. Relational place-making describes the process through which physical spaces are transformed into socially meaningful places, and how these understandings are contested and negotiated among different groups of actors. These contested narratives of place, called place-frames, can interact with economic development efforts to help create (or fail to create) sustainable communities. To better understand the efficacy of a specific fisheries policy, the community development quota (CDQ) program, we conducted 6 months of ethnographic research in the rural, Native communities of St. George and St. Paul, Alaska. In both communities we found that local place-frames centered on local empowerment and control. In St. George, local place-frames conflicted with place-frames advanced by CDQ employees, and locals were unable to align place-making goals with local economic realities. In St. Paul, local residents and CDQ employees shared a place-frame, allowing them to accomplish numerous local development goals. However, differences in place-frames advanced by other political entities on the island often complicated development initiatives. This study supports previous research indicating that policies and development projects that increase local power and self-determination are most successful in furthering community sustainability and well-being. This study indicates that relational place-making can illuminate local goals and desires and is therefore of great utility to the fisheries management decision-making process. This study also adds to current efforts at assessing the vulnerability of fishing communities. Typically these assessments center around the creation of quantitative indices. The quantification of social data, however, has several drawbacks. These include the loss of detail, removal of historical context, and obscuring of power dynamics. The Means, Meanings, and Contexts (MMC) Framework is presented as an alternative methodology, one that allows for the integration of qualitative social science into the understanding of community vulnerability, drawing upon ethnographic research techniques and theories of place-making. Place-making refers to the changing relationships between the physical support offered by a landscape (means), and the relationships among place, people, and lifestyle in a community (meanings). To adequately assess community vulnerability, researchers can collect data on both means and meanings within a community. Using these data, community vulnerability is assessed by responding to a series of 12 broad prompts. Responses to these prompts are summarized at three levels of detail: detailed textual description, tabular summary, and graphical summary. Using the Pribilof Island communities of St. George and St. Paul, Alaska as examples, this framework indicates that St. George is a highly vulnerable community, while St. Paul is moderately vulnerable. These results are in stark contrast with quantitative assessments of community vulnerability, which indicate that St. George is a low to moderately vulnerable community, while St. Paul is a highly vulnerable community. Tools like the MMC Framework, therefore, help make a place for important, but complex, qualitative social data, in fisheries management. Project website: http://pribilofplacemaking.com/