Resilient Fishing Families and Communities: Adapting to Change

Abstract

This chapter synthesizes more than two decades of interdisciplinary scholarship by the coauthors related to fishing families and coastal communities. Amid the contemporary narrative of increasing coastal storms, erosion, and other physical hazards associated with climate and related coastal hazards facing coastal communities, we find myriad ways that Oregon fishing families and communities adapt to changes and continually demonstrate cultural and community resilience. Fishing families have exhibited their resilience through transformations in family roles, changes in the makeup of the fleet (graying), and never-ending management and resource shifts. This process of adapting to change has been a thread in our research, from one of our first collaborative projects, Adapting to Change: Fishing Businesses, Families, Communities, and Regions (1995) to our current project, The Old(er) Men of the Sea: Graying of the Fishing Industry and Its Impact on Local Community Resiliency. Our work illustrates an ever-present culture of adaptation that serves as the anchor of resilience in coastal Oregon