This dissertation examines the privatization of fishing rights as a form of marine governance and the transformations brought about by privatization policies in remote Alutiiq fishing communities of the Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska. Conclusions are based on twelve months of ethnographic research, a large-scale mail survey of Alaska halibut quota holders, and in-depth analysis of fisheries privatization discourses and policies. I describe how privatization policies remake the relationship between fishing communities and the resources on which they depend—constraining flexible, kin-based village fisheries and causing dramatic reductions in fisheries participation. Mail survey results show clear relationships between market participation, attitudinal responses, and demographic variables. A logit analysis suggests that fishermen with lower incomes and those that identify as Alaska Native are more likely to sell, and less likely to purchase fishing rights. While reasons for declining participation are complex, fishermen identify ‘the permit’ as an important social marker of change in their communities. Social changes related to permitting and privatization, including the emergence of a ‘lost generation’ with few ties to fishing, pose challenges for marine-dependent community sustainability.

This dissertation also analyzes conflicts generated by privatization. I contrast discursive framings of fisheries enclosure as: economic rationalization, focused narrowly on rent maximization; management improvement, expanded to include unsubstantiated links to resource conservation and safety; and ratz, a politicized discourse of resistance, to show that conflict results from divergent values and assumptions. Economic theories of disconnection (Taylor 2006) miss the important social and cultural attachments to place, identity, and lifestyle that characterize many fishing livelihoods.

Finally, this dissertation evaluates possibilities for distributive equity, including indigenous rights movements and place-based fishing rights. An assessment of the Community Quota Entity Program reveals that collective organization is linked to community size and magnitude of quota loss; financial assistance is currently necessary. While the effects of privatization are not entirely predictable, this historical political ecological analysis shows that these policies tend to reinforce inequities based on ethnicity and class. Collaboratively envisioning and strengthening community fishing rights may help promote a diversity of fishing values and lifestyles that current discourses and realities of fisheries privatization increasingly restrict.