Global economic imperatives, crisis generation and local spaces of engagement in the Chilean aquaculture industry

Abstract

The authors use the 2007 ISA virus outbreak in Chilean salmon aquaculture, coupled with insights from post-structural political ecology, as an opportunity to examine the institutional architecture and discursive hegemony of particular production strategies that silenced local experiences with the industry in favour of continuing exploitation. The authors argue that the case makes visible some of the generally relevant processes in which the generation of the crisis takes place within governance structures that involve few spaces of engagement for local actors to influence and participate in decision-making. Municipalities have few opportunities to shape the development of an industry with significant socio-economic impacts on their jurisdictions. Finally, the authors show how the crisis opens spaces of engagement for local actors and argue that sustainable governance of aquaculture depends on such spaces through which critical perspectives and warning signs can be communicated and negotiated, and through which local entrepreneurs can enter the value chain.