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Social Sciences
Fisherman "Net"works
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In the mid-1980s, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) was receiving major criticism for the way it was choosing its advisory panels. SAFMC wanted to establish and maintain stronger ties and find a more effective method of locating influential members within the fishing community. |
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Connecting lines among peopleThe questions of "how can we give them a tool they can use, where do you start, and how do you get something to stop," needed to be addressed, says Maiolo, principal investigator of the research. "Connecting lines among people in the network had to be established."The goal of the study was to identify influential charter, commercial, and recreational fishermen within the king mackerel fishing community in North Carolina and throughout the Southeast. "To begin the process, we randomly sampled people the council believed were ones others relied on in the networks for information," says Maiolo. Using social network analysis, participants were asked to list three individuals they talked the most with in the fishing community. The identified individuals were then asked the same question until no new names were presented. Data were used to create a map to understand the groupings of the fishermen, who they communicate with, and their relationship patterns. Fishermen were interviewed at home and work over the telephone and in person. Locals trained in interview administration and experienced interviewers from ECU gathered the information. Forms were provided, and those who scored the highest were seen as the key members. Age, number of years in the community, experience, periodicals they subscribed to, education, income generated through fishing, and membership in organizations were all taken into consideration. "It’s a complicated, expensive process, and we needed to find a way to shorten it," Maiolo explains. "We had to establish what they talked about and how often they talked. As a result, we looked for the most important characteristics that the fishery managers could easily identify." "We found the most influential people had a great deal of experience, belonged to several organizations, and read many different periodicals," says Maiolo. "These features were easily identified. The ones that were most aware of what was going on and were looked to for information were the ones that went out and got the information." Of the 238 king mackerel fishermen in the social network map, 10 individuals were revealed as having primary influence within the fishing community—two were commercial and recreational fishermen and the rest were charter boat fishermen. When asked, resource managers identified only one of the ten individuals they thought to be most influential. The research showed that some areas and industries are more dependent on social networks than others and interviews can help assess needs and implement strategies. With the new list of key names, SAFMC was able to refocus its search and periodically update the advisory panel selections using information from their surveys. "Apparently the method still works," explains Maiolo. "The technique [SAFMC’s advisory panel process] is still used today and as far as I know, the criticism has all but gone away." Following the mackerel fisherman activity, Maiolo used the same methods in the shrimp fishery, in identifying community leaders to examine offshore drilling, and in many other research cases involving coastal communities—all with positive results. |
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