Economic reform and the changing institutions of coastal resource use in a southern Chinese fishing village

This dissertation is about changing coastal resource use and management in southern China. I focus on the organizational changes in markets, communities and households which have accompanied Chinese economic reforms. I examine how these changes have impacted the use and management of inshore fishery resources and coastal wetlands in Tanzhou Township in Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in Tanzhou and the nearby Zhuhai Special Economic Zone (SEZ). This fieldwork consisted of household interviews and participant observation, as well as in-depth interviews and time allocation observations aimed at collecting information about coastal resource use activities. This dissertation draws from theoretical approaches in economic anthropology, household economics and political ecology. I discuss theoretical debates in these fields, as well as related debates about markets, guanxi networks and town and village enterprises (TVEs) in Chinese studies. In addition to describing changing economic and resource use activity, this dissertation concludes that the interactions and decisions of local actors have shaped the market, community and household institutions which structure coastal resource use. Institutional changes such as strengthened private sector commodity chains, decollectivization and increased autonomy for households and family enterprises have resulted in the decline of institutions which regulate and manage coastal resources. This dissertation also finds that the recent emergence of tourism and other evidence of local activism shows that institutions may emerge which encourage sustainable resource use while also promoting the economic well being of local residents.