Understanding Fisheries Conflicts in the South—A Legal Pluralist Perspective MAARTEN BAVINCK Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Fifty years after the launching of a blue revolution in the capture fisheries of devel- oping countries, conflicts between small-scale and industrialized fishers continue to be vehement. Our understanding of backgrounds, however, lags behind. This article seeks to give content to the issue of conflict in the context of marine capture fish- eries. By connecting the conflicts that are taking place to the livelihoods of small- scale and industrialized fishers and to their varied social and legal systems, a deeper understanding of the problem is achieved. According to the legal pluralist perspec- tive, conflicts of the kind considered are related to the fact that participants adhere to different sea tenure systems, the tenets of which vary substantially. The perspec- tive is illustrated by means of an example from the Coromandel Coast, India. Keywords capture fisheries, conflict, India, legal pluralism, sea tenure, small- scale fisheries In a memorable article published a decade and a half ago, Jean-Philippe Platteau (1989) describes the development of marine fisheries as it has taken place in the South ever since the Second World War. He analyzes how worldwide growth in pro- duction and trade of seafood has similarly affected the industry in different parts of the globe. One of the core features of the transition affected in this period is a new dualism in fish production—a result of the fact that governments in this period established industrialized trawler fleets next to existing small-scale fisheries. He describes the relations between the two fishing subsectors as often being character- ized by conflicts of interest. The contradiction noted by Platteau has achieved general recognition. Scholars and international agencies confirm that conflicts between industrialized and small- scale subsectors permeate coastal fisheries in many developing countries, and are indeed vehement. Simultaneously, however, scientific attention has massively shifted to another terrain, namely, the extensive incidence of overfishing and the measures necessary for conservation and restoration of marine resources (e.g., Pauly et al. Received 14 October 2003; accepted 22 February 2005. A seminal version of this article was presented in the XIIth International Symposium of the Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism in Williamsburg, VA, July 26–August 1, 1998. I thank Derek Johnson and the anonymous assessors of Society & Natural Resources for their constructive comments on later versions of the text. Address correspondence to Maarten Bavinck, Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 JV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: j.m.bavinck@uva.nl Society and Natural Resources, 18:805–820 Copyright # 2005 Taylor & Francis Inc. ISSN: 0894-1920 print/1521-0723 online DOI: 10.1080/08941920500205491 805