Collective action and symbolic capital in the artisanal fisheries: An analysis of the Local Food Systems of Reloncaví Estuary (Los Lagos), Chile

Abstract

In a post-industrial economy, it is as important to understand “material” productive processes in the local community as the processes through which global value chains “expropriate” or “co-opt” common immaterial assets. However, the literature on collective action and the management of common goods generally focuses on matters of the control and governance of material resources. The article commences with an analysis of the relations between the production of value, collective action and the rentier nature of contemporary capitalism and its entrepreneurial ideology. Then, we present a detailed analysis of the case of mytilid seed capture in the Reloncaví Estuary (Los Lagos Region, Chile). This case shows us the failure of modernisation policies which are based on converting local producers into modern entrepreneurs. To adopt a successful value strategy, a very different problem must be addressed, namely the difficulties of local communities in managing successfully their own common immaterial values. Faced with the dichotomous logic of neoliberalism, communities must reunite these immaterial values and the associated common material resources, and modulate the friction between them.