Connected by sea, disconnected by tuna? Challenges to regionalism in the Southwest Indian Ocean

ABSTRACT

Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles are at the center of industrial tuna extraction in the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO). In this paper, we show that, while a discourse of regionalism between the three islands is prominent, the possibilities of regionalism face deep challenges in relation to the tuna industry. This is due to three factors. First, local perceptions, especially amongst those working in and on the tuna industry, are in disconnection with an ‘Indianoceania’ vision. Second, the geopolitics between coastal states and distant water fishing nations creates various entanglements including through fishing access revenue and foreign aid. Finally, the materiality of tuna can at times create competition as countries seek to individually maximize benefits from the industry. We argue that the active reinforcement of regional identity and collaboration around this resource is necessary to sustain local benefits into the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Tuna
• fisheries
• regional cooperation
• political ecology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mialy Andriamahefazafy is a PhD candidate in Human Geography within the Institute of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research interests focus on the political ecology of tuna fisheries in the Western Indian Ocean, especially in Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles. She explores the politics of access to tuna resources, narratives around resource use and materiality, and regional cooperation.

Prof. Christian Kull is a geographer within the Institute of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He has a particular interest in the social dimensions of environmental change in developing countries, islands, and highlands. His fieldwork has tended to concentrate around the Indian Ocean rim, particularly Madagascar but also eastern and southern Africa, India, Australia, and beyond.

Dr Liam Campling is Reader in Political Economy at the School of Business & Management, Queen Mary University of London. He works on international trade, global production and labour regimes. His main research interests are in international political economy and uneven development, commodity chain analysis, the history and theory of capitalism and the political economy of development in island states in the Western Indian and Pacific oceans.

ORCID

M. Andriamahefazafy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5470-9264

C. A. Kull http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7516-7898

Notes

1 Other highly migratory species such as marlin, sailfish and swordfish are also an important component of fisheries management in the SWIO region, as referred to Article 64 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea on regional cooperation for conservation and optimum utilization of highly migratory species. However, these species are beyond the scope of this paper as in the three countries studied, their catches are much lower than those of tuna species – less than 10% in volume of catches within the EEZs (GoMu, 2017a; GoS, 2016; USTA, 2017).

2 The three countries studied also have active sport fishing of tuna and billfishes but this has been less studied and catches are believed to be insignificant in volume compared to catches from industrial purse seine and longline fleets.

3 Signatories to the Convention establishing the WIOTO were Comoros, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

4 For a theorisation of the role of ‘natural’ resource industries in the global economy, see Baglioni and Campling (2017).