Pescadores artesanais do Ceará: política, organização social e interlocução com o Estado

Abstract

Artisanal fisheries in Brazil are governed by a set of legal and institutional instruments that frequently lack articulation between the economic, ecological, and social dimensions that characterise this activity. Historically, the fishing communities in Ceará have been structured as traditional cultures, marked by low capital accumulation and the intergenerational transmission of a vast knowledge regarding natural resources. Given their social vulnerability, dependence on labour representation entities, such as Fishermen’s Colonies (Colônias de Pescadores) – constitutionally recognised as the legitimate interlocutors of the category with the State –, is a central issue for promoting access to rights and mediating dialogue with public authorities. In this context, this research aims to analyse the role of the Fishermen's Colonies as representatives of these professionals within the scope of artisanal marine fisheries in Ceará. The adopted methodology included semi-structured interviews with fisherfolk and Colony leaders across four sectors of the Ceará coast, namely: the Extreme West Coast, the West Coast, the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza, and the East Coast. Furthermore, field observations and documentary analysis of legislation, reports, and institutional records were conducted. This approach provided an understanding of how the relationship between fisherfolk and the Colonies is established, how these institutions operate in mediating welfare and social assistance rights, and the main challenges facing the political and social representation of these communities. The results indicate that, in Ceará, Fishermen's Colonies predominantly fulfil the role of bureaucratic mediators between fishing workers and the state apparatus, to the detriment of actions focused on political mobilisation, territorial defence, and the strengthening of the socioeconomic conditions of fishing communities. This dynamic restricts their operations to an eminently administrative sphere, limiting the development of actions in other dimensions relevant to the sector, such as the active defence of rights, mobilisation for production support infrastructure, and the effective protection of fishing territories, thus indicating a misalignment between their representational potential and their concrete actions.