Cultural Consensus Analysis and Environmental Anthropology: Yellowfin Tuna Fishery Management in Hawaii

Abstract

Natural resource policies in the United States are implemented with a social technology of objectivity. Accordingly, resource managers rely on scientific and quantitative analyses to satisfy constituencies distrustful of regulatory authorities. Cultural consensus analysis is a powerful method for determining whether knowledge domains are structured in ways that support a conclusion that cultural members recognize certain cultural truths not known before-hand to the investigator. The authors compare hand-line fishermen and fishery scientists in Hawaii regarding their knowledge about stock structure, fish movements, resource abundance, stock condition, and fishery interactions. Yellow fin tuna fishery results show that fishermen and scientists exhibit an overall consensus about ecological knowledge, although they disagree in some areas. Some practical advantages of consensus analysis are discussed along with the possibilities for growth in the fishery social science sector, cross-cultural applied research, and the practice of environmental anthropology.