‘A Very Delicate World’: Fishers and Plant Workers Remake Their Lives on Newfoundland’s Bonavista Peninsula After the Cod Moratorium

• Main Author: Peter R. Sinclair
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.566.8156; http://www.marecentre.nl/mast/documents/PeterSinclair-MAST2003-1-4.pdf

Abstract In 1992, with the cod stocks exhausted in most of the northwest Atlantic, the federal government of Canada declared a moratorium on the fi shery. Up to 25,000 rural Newfoundlanders were suddenly without work in a region with minimal eco-nomic diversifi cation. For seven years, special state programs provided fi nancial and educational support. In this context, what did people do? How can we understand their actions? I show that the crushing blows of outside forces were followed not by a restructuring of experience in which people drew diversely from what was available in their environment and sustained local life in new forms. I rely on four detailed cases (two men and two women) supplemented by reference to a much larger body of survey and fi eldwork data collected in 1994-95. For each person, I review both their work in the fi shing industry and what happened after the moratorium prior to interpreting this material sociologically. Introduction1 In 1992, with the cod stocks exhausted in most of the northwest Atlantic, the federal government of Canada declared a moratorium on the fi shery. Up to 25,000 rural