The dispute over risk. The eco-social conflict between small-scale fishing and halieutic capitalism. The case of the "Mar Muerto" in the Isthmus-Coast in Chiapas, Mexico

Abstract

This article addresses the mechanics of the modernization process in the Dead Sea area in the Isthmus of Chiapas, Mexico, promoted by the government through halieutic capitalism, whose settlement resulted in a collision between the ideas of the free market and the logics of a lifestyle strongly rooted in nature. Risk is proposed as an explanatory figure considering the ontological relationship that, because of their activity and contact with the sea, fishing societies have with this element, which has also been the basis of identity and social organization. In a brief review, we mention the efforts made to develop the coastlines, with consequences that, in cases such as the one observed here, have also led to increasing environmental deterioration and a weakening of the social fabric. The objective is to show that, in traditional fishing societies, the rationality that guided the trade and that was reflected in work patterns, community organization and interaction with nature, was based on a metonymic relationship with risk, which, when modified mainly due to the insertion of new technologies, concomitantly facilitated the changes required by the reordering process driven by the forces of capital. The essentially contentious nature of the process is also highlighted, and certain resistance and opposition with which the fisherman defends his way of life is shown.