Natural Resource Access and Interracial Associations: Black and White Subsistence Fishing in the Mississippi Delta

Abstract

Using qualitative data gathered over approximately twenty months, we examine how racial divisions between black and white fishers factor into access, harvesting strategies, and use of natural resources in subsistence fishing activities in the Mississippi Delta. Though both races engage in subsistence fishing for many of the same reasons -- a sense of autonomy and economic independence -- clear differences were manifest in their access, harvesting strategies, and utilization of the fish. We document these differences. We conclude that the social relations between white and black subsistence fishers, as they interact with and through the landscape, appear to perpetuate the characteristics of race relations in this region rather than redefine them. Subsistence harvesting of natural resources persists in the Mississippi Delta (Brown, Xu, and Toth 1998). The rich natural resource base of the Delta is accessed extensively and in some cases intensively by local residents. Overt racial divisions which influence access to many resources and life-chances also persist in the Mississippi Delta (see