Abstract

For decades and generations, the fishing communities of Veracruz (Mexico) have been working without a high rate of social return as product of their economic activity, which could be reflected in present and future improved living conditions. Why does this situation prevail? The hypothesis lies in the following arguments: First, the economic problem is structural and besides, these communities have been subject to (and dependent of) the "government favor" at election times, and second, mainly for the above reasons, these communities have lost their innate entrepreneurial ability, which was essential to solve their problems without relying on a fragile relationship, mainly with the public sector and third, a low perception of its own social reality, so they accept their socioeconomic conditions as an unalterable and irremediable statu quo. The segment of the problem that we want to know and solve by working with the fishing communities is precisely to increase the level of perception of their own social reality, with the aim of building a new socio-economic benchmark of its activity, inducing a self-critical capacity through the thinking and discussion of everyday problems, principally the ones that affect the sustainability of fisheries and in consequence its social and economic development. The methodology was based on two phases; firstly, a survey with four areas of general, technical, social and economic information and secondly, a workshop based on the TKJ technique (Team Kawakita Jiro) to stimulate the definition and analysis of common problems reconciling the individual interests toward the collective resolution of their social reality.