Social Processes as Drivers for Empowerment of Sustainable Fisheries Management on Åland

This study analyses and evaluates an early-stage, pre-intervention phase in Åland’s small-scale fisheries community and examines the usefulness of a mixed-methods approach. It focuses on how combining three complementary methods supports the development of a grounded and legitimate pilot, rather than assessing pilot outcomes. The study applies a mixed-method approach combining a governance audit, community stakeholder workshops, and Q-methodology to map the social and institutional context prior to pilot implementation. The small-scale fisheries community in Åland represents an important cultural heritage and way of life, but faces increasing vulnerability due to regulatory pressures, ecological challenges, and socio-economic marginalisation. The findings suggest that combining multiple social science methods can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of stakeholder perspectives, power dynamics, and governance constraints, while supporting the identification of locally relevant intervention pathways and creating conditions for more legitimate and inclusive pilot development. However, the results also highlight limitations related to uneven participation and the difficulty of engaging diverse stakeholder groups in practice. The analysis indicates that social science approaches can provide an essential foundation for the later development of ecologically and socially grounded interventions, including nature-based solutions where locally appropriate. Nevertheless, social science contributions are currently less prominent than technical nature-based interventions, suggesting the value of more balanced integration between scientific disciplines in future initiatives. Overall, this article illustrates both the potential and the limits of mixed-method approaches in early-stage co-creation processes, offering insights for the design of participatory governance interventions in coastal communities.