Heterogeneity And Collective Action For Effort Regulation : Lessons From The Senegalese Small-Scale Fisheries

Abstract

Much attention has recently been paid to the potential influence of inequality or heterogeneity on people’s ability to organize collectively, particularly with respect to management of local-level natural resources. Speaking generally about this issue makes little sense in so far as heterogeneity or inequality is obviously a multidimensional phenomenon the different facets of which may carry varying implications for collection action capacities. Important among these different facets are : income or wealth (or productive capital) inequality, inequality in access to alternative income opportunities, social stratification or differential positions in the local power structure, skill disparity, ethnic and cultural heterogeneity, and diversity in techniques employed or in patterns of resource use.