Modernizing Indonesian Fisheries in the Decentralization Period (1999-2007) : From Capturing to Culturing

Abstract

This thesis is about the modernization of fishing practices in a traditional fishermen community in Indonesia in the context of decentralization. The focus will be to learn how the process takes place, and how actors interact, share and negotiate meanings and create changes in their daily life. It will explore culturing/farming, the new form of fishing, which involves local government as the catalyst and/or facilitator of the projects and fishermen as the recipients/owners of the projects.

This thesis would help readers in the area of development to understand the dynamic and complexity in a development program where actors actively negotiate their interests in shaping and shifting a development program to their utmost advantages. Consequently, the outcome of a development program is not precisely similar with what had already planned before. An actor oriented approach is used as the analytical approach and an interface approach is used as the framework of analysis to analyse two case studies: culturing the groupers (a fish) and culturing the seaweed.