Life and Livelihood: Survival Strategies of Fisherman in Pa’jenekang Island

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-545-4_21How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Fishermen; Adaptive Strategy; Economy; Social; cultural

Abstract

Pa’jenekang Island hosts a small-scale fishing community currently facing economic hardship, limited resources, and coastal environmental dynamics. This research employs an ethnographic method aimed at exploring the household survival strategies of fishermen on Pa’jenekang Island, using the framework of anthropological adaptation theory. The findings reveal that the fishing population employs diverse adaptive strategies across social, economic, and cultural domains to sustain their livelihoods. Economically, the community primarily depends on employment as fishing crew members (sawi) within a patron–client system known locally as punggawa-sawi. Beyond their main occupation, many fishermen engage in mobile fish trading (pa’gae). Within households, fisherman’s wife adopts additional adaptive measures such as maintaining gold savings as an economic safety net fisherman in Pa’jenekang Island. Socially, adaptation is manifested through mutual cooperation, household role distribution, and social network relations. Culturally, fishermen continue to preserve local traditions through rituals and religious celebrations, such as the commemoration of Muharram and so on. This strategy shows that adaptation by fishermen on Pajenekang Island can be an alternative when resources are limited.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - R. Nur Atikah Hijrah Maemunah
AU  - Safriadi
AU  - Jayana Suryana Kembara
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/13
TI  - Life and Livelihood: Survival Strategies of Fisherman in Pa’jenekang Island
BT  - Proceedings of the World Conference on Governance and Social Sciences 2025 (WCGSS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 294
EP  - 302
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-545-4_21
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-545-4_21
ID  - Maemunah2026
ER  -