Uncommon Property - The Fishing and Fish-Processing Industries in British Columbia placeholder

Uncommon Property

The Fishing and Fish-Processing Industries in British Columbia

Edited by Patricia Marchak, Neil Guppy, and John L. McMullan
Publisher: UBC Press
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774856942, 410 pages, November 2007
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Table of contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

1. Uncommon Property / Patricia Marchak

Part 1: Capital and the State

2. The Organization of the Fisheries: An Introduction / John
McMullan

3. Major Processors to 1940 and Early Labour Force: Historical Notes
/ Alicja Muszynski

4. Competition Among B.C. Fish-Processing Firms / Evelyn
Pinkerton

5. The Production and Distribution of B.C. Salmon in the World
Context / Stephen Garrod

6. State, Capital, and the B.C. Salmon Fishing Industry / John
McMullan

7. "Because Fish Swim" and Other Causes of International
Conflict / Patricia Marchak

Part 2: Labour and Organization

8. Labouring at Sea: Harvesting Uncommon Property / Neil
Guppy

9. Labouring on Shore: Transforming Uncommon Property into
Marketable Products / Neil Guppy

10. Organization of Divided Fishers / Patricia Marchak

11. Indians in the Fishing Industry / Evelyn Pinkerton

12. Shoreworkers and UFAWU Organization Struggles between Fishers
and Plant Workers within the Union / Alicja Muszynski

Part 3: Community and Region

13. The Fishing-Dependent Community / Evelyn Pinkerton

14. Regionalism, Dependence, and the B.C. Fisheries: Historical
Development and Recent Trends / Keith Warriner

Conclusion

15. Uncommon History / Patricia Marchak

Appendices

A. Notes on Sample Survey Methodology

B. Papers and Publications Bibliography Index

This study offers readers unique insights into the complex problems of
fishing industries in which competing interests are attempting to find
solutions to unresolvable contradictions.

Description

Uncommon Property describes Canadian West Coast fisheries
in the 1980s, focusing on the social and economic structure of the
industry. It is the product of a three-year research project conducted
by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of
British Columbia.

Part 1 is concerned with the history of the industry, the role of
the federal and provincial governments, international markets,
significant differences in raw fish markets and their importance for
the fish processing sector, and the international context for British
Columbia fisheries.

Part 2 considers the labour process. This includes chapters on
shoreworkers and fishers, with descriptions of their characteristics
and working conditions. It also examines their history of organization,
the special place of native Indians in the fishery, and the perspective
of history by the Union of Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union
Newspaper.

Part 3 considers fishing communities: their viability when they are
dependent on a diminishing resource and their responses to resource
depletion.

This study offers readers unique insights into the complex problems
of fishing industries in which competing interests are attempting to
find solutions to unresolvable contradictions.

Reviews

A welcome and valuable resource book essential for anyone interested in the west coast fisheries. More than that, however, the key chapters by Guppy, Pinkerton, and Muszynski in Part 2 and one on the state by McMullan in Part 1 are classic articles in the field and deserve to be widely cited  as insightful, original contributions to Canadian political economy.

- Wallace Clement