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Livelihood trajectories in the Chilean Patagonian region: an ethnographic approach to coastal and marine socioecological change

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Abstract

Livelihood trajectories are a conceptual device to synthetize the collection of successive strategies displayed by individuals and groups to ensure survival and wellbeing over time. Using this concept, we conduct an explorative analysis of how various episodes, interventions, and ecological change have influenced different livelihood strategies of small-scale fishermen in the southernmost region of the world, the Patagonian region of Magallanes, Chile. Through ethnographic research, we identified four trajectories along five distinct periods: (i) 1960–1972, from the year of the largest recorded earthquake in world history to the initial expansion of industrial fishing; (ii) 1973–1982, from the military coup and the beginning of neoliberal reforms; (iii) 1983–1990, marked by fishing export booms; (iv) 1991–2000, noted by return to democracy and enactment of the first Fishing and Aquaculture General Act; and (v) 2000 to present, characterized by coastal planning and changes to the aforementioned law. Along these periods, trajectories are marked by migration waves and the deployment of specific livelihood strategies, highly modulated by both global seafood markets and legal changes. The results show the potential of ethnographic approaches to the study of long-term interactions in marine and coastal socioecological systems by identifying underlying historical dynamics, specific pulses and pressures, and actors’ responses to regional socioecological changes.

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Notes

  1. An important feature of the Chilean case is that the word region acquired constitutional status in 1974 when the last reform for the decentralization of the country set the term “region” as the largest subnational politico-administrative unit. Thus, Magallanes is one of the 15 regions composing the Chilean nation, part of the ecological system known as subantarctic region, and a fraction of the socially constructed region known as Patagonia (see Fig. 1). Patagonia is a large cross-bordered area associated to the southernmost territories of Argentina and Chile that through colonial times and up to the late twentieth century has exhibited vague boundaries and changing names. In the Chilean case, there is a further geographic division between the Northern Patagonia, integrated by the Region of Aysén and the Province of Palena, and the Southern Patagonia which is the Region of Magallanes. This distinction is not official and does not have administrative consequences but is culturally acknowledged by their inhabitants (Blanco 2009).

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Funding

This work has been funded by the Centro de Investigación Dinámica de Ecosistemas Marinos de Altas Latitudes, IDEAL (FONDAP 15150003).

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Correspondence to Gustavo Blanco-Wells.

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Editor: Nicolas Dendoncker

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Mellado, M.A., Blanco-Wells, G., Nahuelhual, L. et al. Livelihood trajectories in the Chilean Patagonian region: an ethnographic approach to coastal and marine socioecological change. Reg Environ Change 19, 205–217 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1398-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1398-3

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