Extreme Events and Plurality of Knowledge

Extreme Events and Plurality of Knowledge: Perceptions and Rationalities on Climate Change, among Fishermen of Local and Coastal Artisanal Fisheries in Peniche

Climate Change is a complex phenomenon which is being recognized as one of the greatest threats to the planet, and has been imposed on us and with which we have to cope. It is increasingly recurrent in the media news about climatic events with catastrophic results, especially in areas that are socially and environmentally more vulnerable, with the coastal zones being particularly exposed, both in terms of the local biodiversity, populations, economy and industry. Bearing in mind the complexity and the inter-influence of the climate, environmental and socio-cultural systems, in this dissertation, we focus our analysis in the perception as a layperson on climate changes, from the observation of a small group of Cages, Hook and Fishnets Fishermen, of the Cooperative of Artisanal Fishing Vessel Owners of Peniche. Lay rationalities look at climate change as total phenomena, integrating a plurality of types and sources of knowledge, in an inclusive process, producer of holistic senses and of oriented responses that challenge the scientific paradigm. It is in this field that our target study and our objectives converge. This exploratory study of a qualitative nature highlighted: i) the ineffectiveness of the political impulses which, submitted to the neoliberal hegemony, to the power fights and/or personal interests, become unable to, in fact, institute in society, the inclusion, or the pursuit of sustainable ecological prone resolutions and, ii) based on structures and in social fragmentation, the banality of bad social-environmental practices among common people.