Halieutical commons in the Mediterranean: holistic and engendered governance forms for eco-social development pathways

Abstract

By setting the uniqueness of inshore coastal fishing communities in the Mediterranean as a social halieutical morphology inscribed in the very long span of time, this article underlines why, without any romanticism, these communities have to be scaled up, valorized. It demonstrates how and why some of these robust communal appropriation forms have worked with a low discount rate, which embeds wisdom of the sea, or halieusophy, based on the principle of giving for keeping. Backed by these successful experiences, the author analyses the trajectories of community re-invention, the pathways of their empowering through the setting up of a new institution, ecomuseums for the sea, as ethically based local governance institutions capable of fine-tuning and improving the relationship between humans and marine entities. In the last, thought-provoking, part, the author raises the question: why does this strategic pathway have to come back to the very essence of the scope of the valuable, i.e. women? And he answers: because women in inshore coastal fishing communities ensure, more than in other communities, the holding and ordering of the fluctuations and contingency in family life, and, at a more ontological level of reflection, they embody a disposition for a long-term time horizon and a nondestruction principle. The governance perspectives in fisheries in their global and local modalities have to be en-gendered.