The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters

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dc.contributor.advisorFuh, Divineen_ZA
dc.contributor.advisorOldfield, Sophieen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorBurke, Adamen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2017-01-24T09:06:38Z
dc.date.available2017-01-24T09:06:38Z
dc.date.issued2016en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis work is about how people develop strategies to make sense of and to deal with the challenges of situating themselves within the global push for 'sustainability.' Sustainability is a concept that I understand to be imagined, socially constructed, remade and ritualized as global actors tote the 'sustainable development' discourse globally and impose it upon local actors' practices. Such foisting typically promises to resolve socio-ecological problems by providing communities with certainties and stabilities such as redeeming issues linked to threatened eco-systems and local actors' precarious livelihoods therein. However, I argue that 'sustainability' indeed fails to fulfil its ideological aspirations. In this light, I take the stance that sustainability is performative, and therefore, enacted through sets of relationships which require critical interrogation. I use the example of artisanal fishermen in the Galápagos Islands to demonstrate how: (i) they deal with local managing authorities and the enterprise of sustainability that disturb their daily lives on land and at sea; (ii) they situate themselves within co-management processes; and (iii) their performativities allow them to make sense of and to deal with their precarious livelihoods by remaking, challenging, and subverting 'sustainability' in effort to remain relevant in Galápagos' evolving eco-political landscape. This occurs, I argue, as fishermen enact performativities that are situated in their material practices, collective, and authoritative. Notions of performativity thus contribute to conceptual understandings of how global actors' ambitions to remake local actors' practices 'sustainably' produces and distributes precarity – and therefore exposes how the latter deal with the precarity resulting from their attempts to remain relevant in Galápagos' eco-political landscape over time.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationBurke, A. (2016). <i>The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22967en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationBurke, Adam. <i>"The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22967en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationBurke, A. 2016. The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Burke, Adam AB - This work is about how people develop strategies to make sense of and to deal with the challenges of situating themselves within the global push for 'sustainability.' Sustainability is a concept that I understand to be imagined, socially constructed, remade and ritualized as global actors tote the 'sustainable development' discourse globally and impose it upon local actors' practices. Such foisting typically promises to resolve socio-ecological problems by providing communities with certainties and stabilities such as redeeming issues linked to threatened eco-systems and local actors' precarious livelihoods therein. However, I argue that 'sustainability' indeed fails to fulfil its ideological aspirations. In this light, I take the stance that sustainability is performative, and therefore, enacted through sets of relationships which require critical interrogation. I use the example of artisanal fishermen in the Galápagos Islands to demonstrate how: (i) they deal with local managing authorities and the enterprise of sustainability that disturb their daily lives on land and at sea; (ii) they situate themselves within co-management processes; and (iii) their performativities allow them to make sense of and to deal with their precarious livelihoods by remaking, challenging, and subverting 'sustainability' in effort to remain relevant in Galápagos' evolving eco-political landscape. This occurs, I argue, as fishermen enact performativities that are situated in their material practices, collective, and authoritative. Notions of performativity thus contribute to conceptual understandings of how global actors' ambitions to remake local actors' practices 'sustainably' produces and distributes precarity – and therefore exposes how the latter deal with the precarity resulting from their attempts to remain relevant in Galápagos' eco-political landscape over time. DA - 2016 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2016 T1 - The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters TI - The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22967 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/22967
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationBurke A. The performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious waters. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology, 2016 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22967en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentSocial Anthropologyen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherSocial Anthropologyen_ZA
dc.titleThe performativity of sustainability: Assessing the continuity of artisanal fishing livelihoods in Galápagos' precarious watersen_ZA
dc.typeDoctoral Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoral
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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