Abstract
Uerhavn is a fishing community of approximately 390 people constituting 150 households. It is located on the north-western coast of Norway in Nordvestland county1. The community lies on the outmost tip of a headland facing the open sea. The land is weather-beaten and barren, and nearness to the fishing grounds has been the only reason for settling here. Today the community has 60 registered fishermen, 36 of whom are registered as full-time fishermen. The number of registered fishermen has decreased by about 40 per cent over the past 15 years and the population has dropped by approximately 20 per cent. The part-time fishers are mostly retired full-time fishermen, which explains why the relative share of part-timers has doubled over this period. In addition to the harvesting sector, the community has a fish processing plant, which is owned by investors outside the community. It employs almost 30 people, 21 of whom are from Uerhavn.
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References
Women’s role in the fishing industry has been addressed by for instance Jentoft, Thiessen & Davies (1994) and Gerrard (1994, 1989).
The purse seine is most often used in pelagic fisheries. Purse seine fishery proceeds the following way. First, one looks up the fish and gets a picture of shoal behaviour. Uerhavn purse seiners use light speed-boats equipped with sounders to provide information on the shoal during the seining operation. The second stage is surrounding the shoal with the seine and purse it up at the bottom. Third, the buoy is picked up and the seine taken in such that the catch concentrates in the seine. Fourth, the catch is brought on board with a pump or a landing net. If the catch is to be delivered alive, it is towed to land and locked in a seine waiting to be picked up by a boat designed for transporting live catch (brønnbåt) (Karlsen 1989: 85–105).
The importance of early socialisation into the fishery and the detrimental effects of the school system on recruitment have been addressed by Hetland (1984) and Tiller (1984).
Strategies for concealing information on the radio have been described by Maurstad (1997: 84–85).
Descriptions of fisheries regulations are based on the following documents: Norway 1972; Norway 1978; Norway 1979; Norway 1983a; Norway 1983b; Norway 1986; Norway 1990a; Norway 1990c; Norway 1993a; Norway 1999a; Norway Fisheries regulations J-142-96; J-224-96; J-229-96; J-226-96.
Descriptions of sales organisations and quota monitoring is based on the following sources: Hallenstvedt 1993: 136; Norges Råfisklag 2000; Norway 1951; Norway 1983b; Norway 1989b; Norway 1990b; Norway 1990d: 35–38; Norway 1991; Norway 1993b; Norway 1997–8: 34; Enforcement statistics from the Directorate of Fisheries; Sales organisation’s regulations and other information from the homepage of Norges Sildesalgslag http://www.sildelaget.no.; Pers. com. Norges Råfisklag, Norges Sildesalgslag and Directorate of Fisheries.
In the late 1980s, drift net fishing for salmon was prohibited (Norwegian Fishermen’s Association 1992; Norwegian Fishermen’s Association 1994). This regulation affected several Uerhavn crews.
The view that a moral act is a legal act is also reflected in the public debate in Norway. Since the winter of 2000/2001 the question of breaches of the law in the fisheries has received much attention in the Norwegian media. The focus of the media also triggered political initiatives of various kinds. It has been typical of the public debate on the issue that these violations are seen as the result of weak morality. It is symptomatic of this view that industry organisations representing fish harvesters and the processing industry agreed with the Ministry of Fisheries to establish a professional code of ethics, so as to decrease the number of illegal incidents (see for instance Norway 2000; Norway 2001; Fiskaren 12.01.01 pp 2 and 15).
Hohfeld has distinguished between “claim rights” and “liberty rights”. The first category encompasses the right to control the actions of others whereas the latter encompasses the right to act (Coleman 1990: 49). The right referred to in this context can be hence termed a liberty right. As a right to act it rejects others’ claim rights with regards to certain types of acts under certain circumstances.
The right to work was established in the UN International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. This convention was ratified by Norway in 1972, and has been valid as international law since 1976. It was also incorporated into Norwegian law in 1999 (Norway 1993c; Norway 1998–9; Norway 1999b.) However, it is unreasonable to base any interpretation on the assumption that the fishermen quoted in this context were aware of the precise legal status of this convention.
The Labour Party has been the largest and dominant party in Norwegian politics since World War II. It has been in government most of the time since 1945 and was so also during the drift net conflict of 1977. Declaring that one is a “solid Labour Party” person in this context implies not only that one votes for the governing party but also that one is loyal to the Norwegian political order and basic values of government. It is also important to note that Norwegian fishermen, particularly in northern Norway, historically have had strong links to the Labour Party, and that representatives of fishermen gained posts in the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget) through the Labour Party (Sagdahl 1982a: 31–32).
One of Habermas’s three validity claims (1984: 306–308).
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Gezelius, S.S. (2003). Legitimacy and Survival among Uerhavn’s Fishermen. In: Regulation and Compliance in the Atlantic Fisheries. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0051-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0051-2_3
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