Defiance and obedience: Regulatory compliance among artisanal fishers in St Helena Bay

This article uses ethnography to explore the socio-cultural dimensions of small-scale/artisanal fisheries compliance in St Helena Bay on the west coast of South Africa. The local economy and culture of this once isolated coastal town is being transformed by economic migration, rapacious urban development, and the dramatic restructuring of the local fishing industry. There are more job-seekers, fewer jobs, and the work that is available is increasingly precarious in nature. This is creating significant economic pressure on local households. In consequence, there is a growing reliance upon government grants. There is also a growing reliance on fishing because artisanal fishers are often the only one in the family who brings food and income into the household. Yet the post-apartheid fisheries dispensation has been characterised by a ‘regulatory explosion’, which dramatically circumscribed artisanal fishing activities. In response to the pressures of what they experience as an unjust political economy, and an illegitimate regulatory regime, many fishers have attempted the route of engagement through public participation. Frustrations that often result from engagement strengthen an existing culture of antagonism towards the rules and authority of the state. In this context, defying fishing regulations (i.e. illegal fishing) is not only a rational pursuit of material benefit – it is also a symbolic expression of a pre-legislative right to the marine commons, of autonomy and dignity, and of antagonism towards the state. The result is that regulatory defiance is infused with pride among many local fishers.