"I Think They're All Caught up"

Abstract

In the twentieth century, government involvement in the Newfoundland fishery has taken two discrete forms: management (over fish and fishermen) and development (of industry on behalf of the province and its citizens). Despite vast capital expenditures on fishery research and development to mitigate the uncertainties associated with fishing as an occupation and industry, fishermen-individually and collectively-remain highly vulnerable to both the physical, oceanographic environment, as well as to their sociopolitical environment. The failure to reduce the hazardousness of fishing may be attributed to shortsighted and exclusively sector-based planning or it may be accounted for by assessment procedures and decision processes that misrepresent fishermen's problems to policymakers. To inform policymakers of the range and extent of perceived occupational hazard, the present article summarizes the results of a research project conducted among Newfoundland inshore fishermen in 1980-1981.