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Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia
Based in Walvis Bay, an industrial fishing town in Namibia on the west coast of southern Africa, this thesis argues that via the logic of neoliberalism, relations between scientific knowledge production, historical labour practices, and political decision-making emerge as a way of managing people an...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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School of African and GenderStuds, Anth and Ling
2018
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| _version_ | 1867613248387284992 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Draper, Kelsey |
| author2 | Green, Lesley |
| author_browse | Draper, Kelsey Green, Lesley |
| author_facet | Green, Lesley Draper, Kelsey |
| author_sort | Draper, Kelsey |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Based in Walvis Bay, an industrial fishing town in Namibia on the west coast of southern Africa, this thesis argues that via the logic of neoliberalism, relations between scientific knowledge production, historical labour practices, and political decision-making emerge as a way of managing people and nature in uneven ways. Scientific modelling practices in the form of stock assessments, maintain traction as the technological solution for managing natural resource extraction in Namibia. As such, the dissertation explores the efficacy of computer models in the industrial fishing sector and considers how breakdowns between the scientific, social, and political knowledge worlds can be usefully brought into the conceptual model of the fishery for management. With a shift towards a more inclusive management framework that considers the policy issues as well as translating broad goals into measurable objectives, comes a shift in the logic of what fisheries management is meant to mediate and achieve. The logic is no longer as straightforward as producing an estimate of the amount of fishable biomass, but now must account for market conditions, changing technologies for fishing, and a changing climate and ecology. The human dimension is framed around the concept of wellbeing which in fisheries management emerges as an umbrella term for the social world that is reduced through the logic of neoliberalism to the measurable, enumerable, and indexable social and political implications of the use of Namibia’s natural resources. As one of few ethnographies of Namibia and the only one thus far to address the fisheries sector as a site of study, this dissertation investigates the increased dependence on scientific models in the Namibian hake fishery despite declining fish stocks and increased urban poverty and inequalities. The research contributes to the limited studies done on the political economy of Namibia and the rise of fish as national resource in the postcolony. It investigates the relations at risk in everyday life in Walvis Bay and re-imagines the framing of humans and nature for transformative practices of environmental and economic justice. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/28360 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:07.122Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publishDateRange | 2018 |
| publishDateSort | 2018 |
| publisher | School of African and GenderStuds, Anth and Ling |
| publisherStr | School of African and GenderStuds, Anth and Ling |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/28360 Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia Draper, Kelsey Green, Lesley Paterson, Barbara fisheries management nature politics Based in Walvis Bay, an industrial fishing town in Namibia on the west coast of southern Africa, this thesis argues that via the logic of neoliberalism, relations between scientific knowledge production, historical labour practices, and political decision-making emerge as a way of managing people and nature in uneven ways. Scientific modelling practices in the form of stock assessments, maintain traction as the technological solution for managing natural resource extraction in Namibia. As such, the dissertation explores the efficacy of computer models in the industrial fishing sector and considers how breakdowns between the scientific, social, and political knowledge worlds can be usefully brought into the conceptual model of the fishery for management. With a shift towards a more inclusive management framework that considers the policy issues as well as translating broad goals into measurable objectives, comes a shift in the logic of what fisheries management is meant to mediate and achieve. The logic is no longer as straightforward as producing an estimate of the amount of fishable biomass, but now must account for market conditions, changing technologies for fishing, and a changing climate and ecology. The human dimension is framed around the concept of wellbeing which in fisheries management emerges as an umbrella term for the social world that is reduced through the logic of neoliberalism to the measurable, enumerable, and indexable social and political implications of the use of Namibia’s natural resources. As one of few ethnographies of Namibia and the only one thus far to address the fisheries sector as a site of study, this dissertation investigates the increased dependence on scientific models in the Namibian hake fishery despite declining fish stocks and increased urban poverty and inequalities. The research contributes to the limited studies done on the political economy of Namibia and the rise of fish as national resource in the postcolony. It investigates the relations at risk in everyday life in Walvis Bay and re-imagines the framing of humans and nature for transformative practices of environmental and economic justice. 2018-09-04T06:47:10Z 2018-09-04T06:47:10Z 2018 2018-09-03T06:27:59Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28360 eng application/pdf School of African and GenderStuds, Anth and Ling Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | fisheries management nature politics Draper, Kelsey Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia |
| title_full | Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia |
| title_fullStr | Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia |
| title_short | Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia |
| title_sort | modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management science extraction and a politics of nature in the walvis bay namibia |
| topic | fisheries management nature politics |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28360 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT draperkelsey modellinghumanwellbeingforfisheriesmanagementscienceextractionandapoliticsofnatureinthewalvisbaynamibia |