It appears to be very strong. I lived in a Wellington (New Zealand) suburb with a mainly expatriate italian fishing community, united by the annual blessing of the fleet and the fact that most of the members went to the local Catholic or Greek Orthodox church. With the introduction of quota and the removal of owner/operator fishing vessels by regulation, the community lost its focus. The same pattern was visible in Freemantle (Australia) where there were communities of fishermen with strong greek and italian family connections. See http://www.italianlegacy.com/italian-fishermen.html

It is very strong among the fishermen communities.The place where I live- Veraval,where the marine fish landings are the highest on the entire Western coast of India,the local fishing community perform rituals in a local temple for their safety at sea & a good harvest & only after they have performed this ritual,do the fishermen for for fishing,in spite of the fact that the closed season is over.

In Ajad Island in the Gulf of Kutch in Western India, the fishermen of the area offer a goat to God & only after this offering along with prayers,do the fishermen start the fishing season after the monsoon.Currently the goat offering has been done away with,but they offer prayers.

I also think the linkage is very strong. There are lots of rituals which are specific to fishing communities in Japan. Our religious belief is based on Shintoism which developed from Animism, so the belief to natural phenomena is very strongly present among fishermen. Do Greek fishing communities also have this line of belief among themselves? I would be very much interested in hearing the comparison. I should be able to provide the analysis on Japanese fishing communities.

Thank you all very much for your input. I would highly appreciate any additional suggestions about available literature etc.

Shogo Kudo,

The Greek communities used to have a very strong spiritual bond with the sea and the Greek Orthodox religion includes multiple fisheries related rituals and symbols. However, lately, the industrialisation of the fishing industry has reduced the active artisanal fishing population and the remaining fishermen seem alienated from the sea. I also believe that the fact that only minimum to almost none marine rituals are performed nowadays, has had an impact on the connection of the communities to the sea and the fishing activity.

I would be very interested in learning your point of view on the topic, if you would like to do so.

Interesting question. I've often seen it from a different side: sea-related rituals and festivals being used as INDICATORS of the continued importance of fishing in a community. If the rituals are lost, is it not because fishing was lost first? And not, fishing is lost, because the rituals are no longer performed? I can certainly see people lessing their activities if they no longer feel connected. Where I currently live in rural Denmark, there are still several festivals a year sponsored by the fishers organisation. Meanwhile one of the famous "blessing of the fleet" festivals in one of New England's (USA) biggest ports, is a sad shell of what it used to be with hardly any participation.

I would imagine as there are fewer and fewer working the sea, you get limited connections to the sea by the greater community. And yet, in some places, you get renewed interest in "cultural heritage" and sometimes communities are re-vitalized and old traditions are brought back.

I primarily work in northern Europe now, (so your thoughts on the EU policy towards decommissioning of boats is intriguiing) but I have also conducted some fieldwork in Crete, Greenland, Cambodia, and spent many years in Japan ... so I am intersted to see what other answers you get to this query: it's a great question!

In Malta there is a strong bond between religious rituals and fishing communities. The great majority of the Maltese are Roman Catholics and frequent church celebrations and fiests for the saints throughout the year. Fishermen have their boats/ships blessed every year and pray ardently for good catches. They pray even more heartily when disaster at sea threatens during storms or accidents. They have also special secret prayers for protection from above when out at sea. They carry with them holy pictures, crucifixes, holy rosary beads and other religious stuff to remind them of their religious beliefs. I shall not dwell about EU policies as they seem to be made by amateurs who know very little, if any, about the fishing profession.

On the aspect of fisheries-related rituals in the past 50 years I can say from family/friend experiences that the Opening Day rituals, especially for the traditional trout seasons are very important to both the people who practice the rituals and the communities where the rituals occur. Many small communities along rivers in California have lived and died with the opening of fishing seasons in both the migratory (anadromous) and local fisheries. My favorite examples come from annual visits to Kings Canyon/South Fork Kings River for opening days in April and annual vacations in July. These traditions have developed into the formation of "Friends of" groups that "give back" to the natural system and the community. In cases where catastrophes have impacted these traditions, like the railroad spill of hazardous chemicals on the Upper Sacramento River near Dunsmuir and Lake Davis responses to the illegal stocking of pike, both of which resulted in major impacts to the local fisheries, economies and social communities.

It is not uncommon along the east coast of the US to have priests do a "blessing of the fleet" at the beginning of legal commercial seasons. These blessings are for protection of not only the fishers but of the vessels, good harvests, and appropriate protection of the resource

Hej Irianna,

I find this question rather broad to be honest. I think, as many other contributors have mentioned, that fishing communities often have rituals relating to their professions. I would assume that the combination of high risk and a fluctuating environment tend to encourage this. Likewise, a need to (historically) rely on fellow community members perhaps encourages people to enact these particular cultural forms. I would however be cautious about linking sustainable development to ritual in a simplistic manner. Communities are always changing and there have always been winners and losers with each change. 'Culture' is just another set of resources within political struggles and does not go hand in hand with either 'sustainable development' (whatever that really is). I think there is sometimes a need to be careful to avoid rose-tinted glasses when examining how communities have changed.

One thing I found really interesting about your question was this idea of 'loss' of connection. It got me thinking about Anna Tsing's book 'Friction' discussing changing lifestyles and landscapes in Indonesia. I think exploring the frictions in local settings caused by global fishing economics might be a productive path to go down. It might lead to a more nuanced accounts of diverse, complicated situations.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, it's a fascinating and vast academic area to explore.

Cheers,

B

What we are really seeing is a modern reinactment of the "fencing of the commons" as small rural fishing communities are driven out by "big business" and falling quotas - in the same way that rural agricultural communities were changed by loss of small scale communal crop production - with a loss of harvest festivals and the like. As a possible example, I suspect that the World Bank instigated changes in Sri Lanka that saw the loss of local rice production has devastated the communities that once grew rice locally. Not sure if that has been documented.

Some Mexican fishing communities (Specifically Laguna Madre, Tamaulipas, Mexico) had lost the "romanticism" to the sea, what I mean? well, they just want to get the product and some money for it and thats all. I have to mention that these people respect the sea, but not more than that, is little sad because they are not bonded with the sea anymore, they still telling some stories of their adventures but not more than stories. I mean, most of them are young people, but elders have another way to see the sea. And this is a problem, because few years ago, when the elders wasn't too old to fish, we went to them to talk about the production, about that they need to take care of the sea and organisms and they understood very well, right now its a little different, young fishermen are not listening about the issues of the fishering in Mexico nor the future lack of production they will have. They only want to live day per day and not to seek the future, and is not only a national issue, is a community issue that will affect them more than us.

The other problem is the cooperative system (fishermen sells here their product, but for a very very low quantity of money, and the cooperative prepare and ship the product to other places) they squeeze the fishermen, but if fishermen wants more money for their product, the cooperative kick them out of the council and no more permission to fish to that persons, so is critical the Mexican (non industrial) way to collect the product.

We're loosing the traditional Mexican fishery culture, sadly.

Good Luck!

Alex.

Hi Irianna:

Suitable natural resources management, fisheries management could be a great example, depends of two main institutional levels of regulation (formal and informal) These different institutions shapes the human behavior, for example shapes fishermen´s behavior in several ways in a specific context / community.

1) Formal institutions: formal rules, laws.

2) Informal institutions, unwritten laws, believes, traditions, religion... In other words all this knowledge learn in the complete life of a community, teach from parents to their children, and that is used for the use and management of resources.

The key is understand like these institutions works in a particular context, for example rituals...

Maybe of Nobel Prize Elinor Ostrom could help you in your research. She demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations and that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.

“Governing the Commons The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action”

In this paper of illegal fishing of turtles in Mexico, the ritual tradition of eat their meat in order to be stronger, is point out like a driver of unsustainable fishing/hunt of these animals.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10745-011-9425-8

Fishing rituals largely damage fish diversity and fisheries resources. An example is fishing festivals, celebrated in Garhwal Himalayas in India, locally known as maund mela organised in most 4th-6th order rivers. The largest fishing events happen at fag end of Aglar River (6th order) in Upper Yamuna valley. Local population in large numbers do fishing using processed powder of woody shrub Zanthoxylum armatum DC. during fishing festivals that affect biodiversity and aquatic ecosystems seriously. This sort of festivals needs to be discouraged in the interest of environment, biodiversity and sustainability of fisheries resources.

These festivals amount to illegal fishing, need to be curbed. 

While fishing rituals may be common in marine environments, they are prevalent in freshwater environment as well. Fishing festivals that are largely destructive need to be shunned. 

Some of the newspaper clippings on fishing festivals are attached here under. Fishing festivals are largely destructive, need to be shunned.