Challenges on the way of life of artisan fishery inside a growing region: the Tanquã community at Piracicaba, SP, Brazil

Abstract

The intensification concerning the multiple uses of water in the Piracicaba River Basin has led to alterations in the aquatic ecosystem, affecting the fishery supplies with a deleterious influence and causing great limitations to the survival and social reproduction of traditional communities. The way of life within Tanquã community is centered on the artisan fishery. The deterioration of the aquatic ecosystem acts as a factor of dissolution in this way of life. On one hand, by compromising and restricting the use of natural resources, and on the other hand, by demanding the modernization of such techniques, so that the artisan fishery can gain additional life span. There is reluctance within the Tanquã that appears as representations of their universe, in the oral memory, and the extra-economic sociability, providing a counterview to a full commitment to the market rationality. As a case study, the objective of this article presents a brief description and a sociological analysis of the process, from a qualitative approach, in which the oral account and the direct observation are blend to characterize the structure and the dynamics of social production of the community. This paper concludes that livelihoods artisanal fishing communities, like in Tanquã, have substantial difficulties when regional growing do not consider an ecosystem approach in the access and use of fresh water.