OBSTACLES TOWARD HUMAN AGENCY: A STUDY ON CBFM PROJECTS IN WATER RESERVOIRS IN NORTHEASTERN BANGLADESH

This study examines to what extent participation in collective fisheries management constrains fishers’ individual agency towards adjusting with environmental and economic vulnerability and ensuring a sustainable livelihood through marshaling resources and skills. Unequivocally, this research aims at exploring the factors that fade away individual agency in collective action. In the context of Tedala-Chatol-Hoglia Beel in Dakshin Sunamganj, Bangladesh, it reveals that community-based fisheries management (CBFM) facilitates fishers’ access to resources in the fisheries, participation in collective decision-making processes and transfer of resources and skills from fisheries to other enterprises for extending livelihood options. But the fishers fail to achieve socioeconomic freedom to live a decent life over the years. Hence, we seek, to what extent does collective action restrain fishers’ individual agency in Tedala Beel? Using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs), it shows that social position allows some fishers to modify rules and resources that improve their individual capacity of acting rationally in different occasions, while others agency is undermined by the same rules and resources.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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