Abstract

RETAMAL MALDONADO, Alejandro. The imaginary meanings of the artisanal fishing communities of the Reloncaví bosom, Chile. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.44, n.1, pp.119-142.  Epub Nov 28, 2021. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v44n1.87873.

This article proposes the analysis of the imaginary fishing meanings, where the social imaginary acts as an articulating and organizing element of the group in its relationship with the coastal environment, the development of the type of fisheries and the ways of using fishing gear, among other aspects. In this way, the imaginary meanings focus their study on how a society or group, in this case referring to artisanal fishermen, perceive and make their surrounding world intelligible, as well as how they experience and represent daily life. The research presented here was developed using the qualitative approach and based on a design of co-presence of methods: historical-ethnographic and participatory. Specifically, the field work was carried out in six fishing communities that live around Reloncaví, Chile: La Vega, Bahía Ilque, Panitao, Anahuac, Panitao, and La Arena. Ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews, and workshops with participatory mapping were carried out in each of these coves, to analyze the fishing identity constructs of this coastal area and the cohesion structures of this group. In the case of fishing identities, these were observed from the following dimensions: territory, intersubjective construction, materiality, and otherness. Regarding the elements of cohesion, the analysis was carried out based on the fishing organizations as instances that strengthen the identification of the group and its surrounding space. In this way, when exploring fishermen's practices and discourses we enter into the central fishing meanings, where in the case of weighers in the heart of Reloncaví revolve around the marine economic culture and others of a peripheral nature, but that also constitute identity elements that can be resignified to face the inconveniences that artisanal fishing goes through.

Descriptors: coastal zones, cultural identity, sea fishin, traditional knowledge.

Keywords : artisanal fishing; collective identities; imaginary meanings; social imagi-nary; social cohesion.

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