Since June 2010 we have been working for a two-year, University of Puerto Rico Sea Grant-funded research project looking at the relationships between the use of Coastal Resources (CR) and the quality of life and well-being (QoL/WB) of people living along the coast of Southeastern Puerto Rico (SE PR). CR use refers to the small-scale harvesting, processing and exchange of coastal resources like commercial small-scale fishing, subsistence fishing, commercial and subsistence land crabbing, mangrove oyster and clam harvesting, and non-timber coastal forest resource uses such as picking coconuts. We define QoL/WB broadly as ?participation in a social form of life that depends not only on physical health but also on healthy (social) relationships? (after J Velazco?s 2009 ?Resources and Needs Questionnaire?). The main goal of our study is to systematically document the contribution of a healthy coast (productive coastal communities and the physical environment they depend on) to QoL/WB and to make that information available to policy makers and the public as they evaluate alternative uses of coastal environments.
A family elder and his young apprentice spend time together and share local knowledge while hand-lining for baitfish near the village of Aguirre, SE Puerto Rico, in 2010. Coastal resource use has remainedsignificant for local household economies while formal employers, such as the Central Azucarera Aguirre (Aguirre Sugarcane Mill), have come and gone with the tides of larger economic trends. The ruins of the Central Azucarera Aguirre can be seen in the background of this picture. Photo courtesy Hilda Llorens and Carlos Garc?a-Quijano
Many families and communities along the rural coasts of Puerto Rico make a living by combining coastal resource use, preparation, marketing, and selling with mainstream jobs in agriculture, retail, services, government and local industries. As anthropologists such as Manuel Valdes Pizzini, David Griffith, Ricardo Perez and others, have shown, this mixed coastal subsistence pattern has existed and persisted for hundreds of years in Puerto Rico?s coasts and dates at least as far back as the time of sugarcane-dominated Caribbean economies. Coastal communities in Puerto Rico have continued to rely on local CRs for at least part of their subsistence and everyday activities throughout the sweeping social, economic, and cultural changes of the last century.
Puerto Rico has been hit particularly hard by the 2008 recession, with tens of thousands of jobs lost to an already vulnerable mainstream economy with very high baseline unemployment rates, compared to the mainland Unites States. In the US and elsewhere, government-backed measures such as ?bailouts? and ?stimulus packages? have been employed as a way to protect sectors and institutions that play important role in the economy. However, public policy should not only be about economic health but about increasing people?s QoL/WB. If a healthy coast contributes significantly to QoL/WB, then shouldn?t greater society be concerned with the coast?s vulnerability to potentially disruptive and de-localizing processes such as excessive industrial and tourism development, and gentrification?
Our central hypothesis is that CR use (and access to CRs) in the rural coast of SE PR has significant positive effects on coastal communities? QoL/WB, as well on the closely related domains of community resilience and livelihood sustainability, and that these positive impacts go beyond purely monetary measures of value to include issues of happiness, enjoyment of healthy social relationships, reciprocity and cooperation, and cultural identity. We have been documenting the various ways in which coastal SE Puerto Ricans make a living with the coastal and estuarine resources, as well as conducting ?well-being and quality of life ethnography,? namely using an array of ethnographic techniques to understand what constitutes QoL/WB for SE PR coastal residents and the role of CR use in achieving, enhancing, or maintaining QoL/WB.
Halfway into our research project, we have found that for these rural coastal communities, QoL/WB is inextricably linked with their use and access to coastal resources. In interviews, informants have defined WB/QOL as a multi-faceted phenomena that includes enough economic security to ?maintain an family,? independence and self-reliance, managing community relationships (goodwill), participating in reciprocity networks and socially beneficial activities, minimizing the impact of socially-destructive activities (such as crime) in their communities, and enjoying a life in contact with the coastal environment. Throughout the study region, various forms of CR harvesting, processing, value-adding, marketing, and selling, figure importantly in the informants? narratives of QoL/WB, or what they often call ?a good life.?
Importance of Ethnography for Understanding QOL/WB
QoL/WB, happiness, success, and other related constructs represent complex phenomena, influenced by multiple factors that interact with one another in multiple ways. Thus ethnography and actual fieldwork is crucial to assess the actual ways these factors combine in ways that are relevant to local people. From the beginning of our research, we have engaged with the wider literature on measuring and assessing well-being, quality of life, happiness, and other constructs, through disciplines such as positive psychology, economics, and ecological economics. We have thus being exposed to the various standard measures used to assess QoL/WB and related constructs, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Human Development Index, the National Well-Being Index, the Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, and others. These indexes and measures are proving useful for comparative purposes and we are using modified versions of some of these measures in the more quantitative survey components of our research.
However, without good, old-fashioned ethnography (our own as well as that that of previous studies of fishery dependency in Puerto Rico by anthropologists such as Manuel Valdes-Pizzini and David Griffith) we would have missed key elements of what constitutes QoL/WB for people in our study?s region and of the relationship between CR use and QoL/WB. For example, practically all interviewed SE PR residents mentioned that one of the key contributions of CR use activities to the region?s QoL/WB is that it represents a viable alternative for young people, specially school dropouts and those already in the criminal justice system, and participate in non-criminal economic activities. Fishermen, land crabbers, and other expert CR users repeatedly told us how they specially cherish their ability to provide local youths (usually their neighbors and extended family members) an opportunity to learn a skill-based trade and ?ganarse la vida honradamente? (make an honorable living). As Puerto Rico experiences widespread and rapidly increasing drug-trade related violence, with record murder rates, Puerto Ricans perceive crime as a major QoL/WB issue and increasingly value any roads that might lead young people away from a life of crime.
In another example, SE PR coastal residents view CR use and access as a source of economic activity that is somewhat independent from larger economic and job market fluctuations, and thus softens the local impact of regional and global economic downturns. A repeated theme in our interview narratives is that coastal residents who have the knowledge and ability to strategically use local CR?s have felt the latest economic recession much less than, for example, office and industry workers in the nearby metropolitan areas who depend only or mostly on the mainstream job markets. In the words of one informant, ?Our lives haven?t really changed that much compared to those of office workers. This recession has turned out to be a great equalizer.?
Our fieldwork has also allowed us to document how the residents of SE PR coastal communities organize to protect their access to a healthy coastal environment. Participating in community activities, we have formed collaborative relationships with coastal SE PR grassroots community social and environmental justice organizations, such as the Iniciativa De Eco-Desarollo de Bah?a De Jobos (IDEBAJO), and Accion Ambiental, that view local people?s engagement with local CR?s as a key component of their quality of life. The defense of the health of coastal environments, as well as local people?s access to it, forms integral part of these organizations social justice agenda. To pursue this they have formed multi-sector alliances between environmentalists, social activists, and CR users, which highlights the importance of CR-based activities for broad sectors of SE PR communities.
We focus most of our current efforts in an ethnographically-informed quantitative survey of CR use patterns and intracultural variation in key domains related to QOL/WB, with the ultimate goal of doing computer assisted simulation of coastal use and change scenarios and their potential effects on local people?s quality of life and well-being. We already have, however, evidence to show policy makers and coastal managers that the value of a healthy coast that includes productive, vibrant, CR-engaged communities goes far beyond numbers of jobs or dollar-figures, indicating the importance of standardizing an index of QoL/WB for inclusion in public policy. CR-engaged communities are transformational agents that make coastal ?ecosystem services? available to local and regional populations, and their activities include socially-beneficial activities and processes beyond direct contributions to GDP. The total value of these activities needs to be documented for rational policy making about the future of coastal areas.
Carlos Garc?a-Quijano, John Poggie and Miguel del Pozo are anthropologists at the department of sociology and anthropology, University of Rhode Island. Ana Pitchon is an assistant professor at the department of anthropology, California State University-Dom?nguez Hills. Their specific interests and theoretical orientations vary, but they all share a passion for the anthropology of coastal and fishing communities.
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