When protection becomes exclusion: eel fishing and heritage governance along Ålakusten (the Eel Coast)

Sammanfattning

The governance of Ålakusten’s eel fishery reveals a growing tension between species conservation and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Using a qualitative case study design, this thesis combines a social-ecological systems analysis of policy documents with a critical heritage studies analysis of oral histories and an expert interview to examine how eel fishing is governed and represented. The analysis shows a structural mismatch between stock-recovery governance and living heritage: policy frames the fishery through quantitative targets and centralised control, while local actors describe an intergenerational practice rooted in family histories, specialised knowledge and social ritual. The thesis concludes that recognition alone is insufficient and that governance requires differentiated conservation rules, formal roles for local heritage actors and structured inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge if ecological recovery and cultural continuity are to be sustained together.