Community Interpretations of Fishing Outside Legal Regulations: A Case Study from Northwest Russia

Abstract Salmon fishing has become a key local resource in several villages on the White Sea coast as a result of post-socialist transformations in Russia. Management of this resource was heavily regulated by the state during Soviet times. The situation changed after the collapse of the socialist regime, when fishing for salmon individually became more easily available. Depending on whether they are local or incomers, people tend to ascribe different values to salmon as a resource. Both groups are involved in the commodification of salmon. Incomers, however, tend to focus more on a commercial meaning of salmon. Although local people also ascribe high commercial value to salmon, they attribute noncommercial meanings to it at the same time. Local people share fishing resources with others more generously compared to incomers. In this paper I look at the difference in meanings ascribed to salmon by local people and incomers, as it reveals itself in people’s attitudes toward fishing outside legal regulations. Introduction Salmon fishing has become a key local resource in several villages on the White Sea coast in northwest Russia after the collapse of the socialist regime. Management of this resource used to be heavily regulated by the state during the Soviet period. The situation changed after the end of Soviet rule, as fishing for salmon individually became more easily accessible. Depending on whether they are local or incomers, people tend to ascribe different values to salmon as a resource. Both groups are involved in the commodification of salmon. Incomers, however, tend to focus more on a commercial meaning of salmon. Although local people also ascribe high commercial value to salmon, they attribute communal meanings to it at the same time. By “communal” I mean those aspects of resource significance that reflect local values and habitual ways of dealing with things in the village. One such value is disinterested sharing of resources with others. By “commercial” I imply those qualities of resources that can bring material profit. In this paper, I look at the difference in attitudes toward salmon among local people and incomers, as it reveals itself in people’s attitudes toward fishing outside legal regulations. I relate my research findings to insights from literature on compliance in natural resource harvesting (Forsyth et al. 1998, Muth and Bowe 1998, Dietz et al. 2003, Gezelius 2004, Hauck 2008), with a particular focus on the role of morality in fishing outside legal regulations (Wilson 2002, Gezelius 2004). I explore these themes within a context of postsocialist transformations in the remote Russian countryside. The paper introduces the place where I conducted fieldwork and comments on my methodology. This is followed by a section on the history of salmon fishing in the area. Next I discuss the variety of people’s attitudes toward illegal fishing and introduce a distinction between communal attitudes toward salmon fishing as expressed by local people, and commercial attitudes as expressed by incomers. In the final section of the paper, I situate my research findings in a wider context of post-socialist transformations in Russia. Research context and methodology The paper is based on data that I collected in several villages on the White Sea coast in northwest Russia throughout 2005-2011. I made about 15 fieldwork trips to different villages, of no longer than two months each. I had a part-time job as well as other commitments during that time and therefore could not conduct a long-term continuous fieldwork. I spent about 20 months in the field altogether. I do not provide further geographic details or names of villages for the sake of confidentiality, as I touch upon a sensitive subject such as fishing outside official regulations. I use a collective designation “the village” throughout the text. People living in the village belong to a local group of Russians who traditionally have been called “Pomors,” from Russian “po moriu” which means “by sea.” The name has been historically applied to Russians living along the White Sea and Barents Sea coasts. Pomors are considered to share certain economic and cultural features that distinguish them from other Russians. Russian people first came to the White Sea coast in the middle of the 11th century, attracted by fishing and hunting opportunities (Ushakov 1972).
The process of Russian people settling and resettling in the area of the White Sea coast continued over a long period of time, and encompassed vast territories. Therefore no single Pomor identity formed and the name was used differently from one area to another. In the course of the 18th century, the name Pomors was extended to all Russian people living along the White Sea coastline (Bernshtam 1978 p. 78). In the village, hardly a day passes without somebody visiting or leaving the place. There are two main groups of incomers: people who have relatives or friends there and people who do not. Among the latter, there are mainly fishermen and tourists. Not reflected in official statistics, this population dynamic reveals itself in collective designations such as “mestnyi” (means local) or “priezzhii” (means incomer), which describe people’s positions in relation to the village and which people sometimes use to draw distinctions between each other. In this paper, I differentiate between local people and incomers as the two groups reveal different attitudes toward salmon as a resource. By local people I mean those who live in the village permanently, or are former permanent villagers who now come to the village for temporary visits. Incomers are people who come from elsewhere and are not kin or close friends to anyone in the village. They can be both permanent dwellers and temporary visitors. There is no rigid opposition between the two groups; they are not homogeneous and there are differences within each group. However, it is secondary to the main difference between attitudes toward fish among local people and incomers. I collected most of my ethnographic data through participant observation. My daily life in the village mainly consisted of participating in people’s quotidian activities, such as walking, fishing, having tea, and socializing. During my stay in the village I also recorded public events, interviewed people, and conducted informal conversations on various village matters. I paid particular attention to the role of salmon in the village and to how people obtain fish and share it with others. In the course of fieldwork, my own status in the village shifted from that of a guest to that of a friend. The shift was reflected in changed ways of obtaining salmon. In the beginning, people would often come to me a few days before my departure and give me fish to take home. As I kept returning to the village, people gradually stopped giving me fish like that and if I wanted to take home some salmon, I had to make a specific effort to obtain it. The word salmon is hardly ever used by people in the village. Instead, they normally say “fish,” as the following example from my fieldwork illustrates: Walking through the village in the afternoon in early December I meet Tania, a young woman in her late twenties. Tania stops for a smoke and a chat. After we habitually exchange our opinions on weather Tania says: the fish is coming now. “What fish?” I ask. Tania looks at me in astonishment, “Are you stupid?” I feel rather embarrassed and hesitatingly ask, “You mean… salmon?” “Of course!” she replies. Examples of this kind helped me to gain further insight into the role of salmon in villagers’ everyday lives. “Without fish, there would be nothing here!” The role of salmon fishing in the local economy People in the village say, “without fish, there would be nothing here.” The fish that attract the majority of incomers to the village today have been the main attraction of the area for centuries. Lajus (2008) makes the point that salmon fishing has never been a means of subsistence for Pomors, but rather a source of living as they traded fish for other goods. Pomors maintained very close contacts with their agricultural past; they traded fish to buy grains and other food that constituted an integral part of their diet. The fishing season in the village usually starts in late May, lasts through summer, and finishes in late autumn. During this period salmon come into the river from the White Sea and travel upstream. Peaks of the fish run are during the high water period from late spring until the end of June and from the end of August until middle or late autumn. Salmon fishing in the village has always been done both in the river and at sea. While in the past sea fishing was on a larger scale compared to the river, nowadays it is the other way around. There are not enough people or equipment such as big boats and longlines to carry out extensive fishing at sea. Before the Soviet period, fishing was done by individuals within a community and by monasteries (Lajus et al. 2010). For sea fishing, the coastline was divided into sectors called “toni” (plural of “tonia”), which were distributed among fishermen. Each tonia had a specific name. It included part of the sea, a stretch of coastline, and houses. With the start of the fishing season in spring those fishermen who possessed a tonia moved with their families from the village down to the coast and lived there in a fishing house until the end of the season in the autumn. Often several families shared a house. Fishing was done with the help of longlines. Several longlines were set up one after another, starting from the shore and perpendicular to it and stretching out toward the open sea. Usually fishing was a job for the men, whereas women were busy with work around the house such as cooking or looking after children. However, it was not uncommon that women were involved in fishing too, when there were no men in the family who could do that.