The central aim of this study is to explore rural attitudes concerning subsistence customary practices, such as gleaning from the harvested fields, catching wild rabbits, birds or fish; gathering wild foods; and collecting wood, furze and gorse. It focuses on the period between 1860 and 1920, when social, economic, political and cultural, changes and transformations, were taking place in rural England. It is a comparative regional study of the Cambridge Fens in Cambridgeshire, the Nene River Valley in Northamptonshire and parts of the Chilterns, mostly situated in Buckinghamshire. Tensions and conflicts concerning customary practices were often expressed through petty and social crime, and these can be viewed in the weekly petty session reports published in local and regional newspapers. These are a reliable and continuous historical source regarding the business of the local courts, which along with school log books, memoirs and diaries, provide insights into the attitudes and opinions of rural populations. The particular significance of this study is that it extends the current historiography and aids our understanding of rural conflict associated with popular culture during this period. The continuation and perpetuation of customary beliefs relied on memory, repetition, negotiation and community tenacity. But ultimately the continuation of asserting such rights, and the shape and form this took, depended on the availability of resources in each region, and individual’s and community’s changing needs and requirements.

This thesis examines Dayak identity constructions and how they have been and are currently being used to assert customary land rights in forested areas of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Indonesian state has required that customary land claims include proof that communities have maintained their indigenous institutions. Drawing from government and NGO reports, academic research, and Indonesian law, a few questions thus are explored: What aspects of identity must be maintained in order to be sufficient to claim customary land rights under Indonesian law? How has recent Dayak mobilization fed into a resurgence in Dayak identity and pride, and vice versa? What opportunities does this hold for conservation and development? This thesis emphasizes the necessity of the subsequent transfer of ownership following the recognition of customary rights, which would protect indigenous land more permanently, increase Dayak community involvement and self-perceptions as active agents in forestry, and in doing so, aid in improving security of indigenous livelihoods and protecting biodiversity in Indonesia’s forests.

O presente estudo analisa os saberes e técnicas patrimoniais utilizadas pela população dos pescadores caiçaras que atuam na região da Ilha Anchieta e Enseada do Flamengo, em Ubatuba, litoral norte do Estado de São Paulo. Este corpo cumulativo de habilidades especiais, transmitidas oralmente, compõe o conhecimento tradicional pesqueiro local, patrimônio imaterial sobre o qual fundamentam sua reprodução sociocultural e o manejo de seus pesqueiros2 tradicionais. Abordamos através de pesquisa qualitativa não dirigida, as relações entre a apropriação social do ambiente marinho e os conflitos decorrentes do embate entre essa noção ancestral de propriedade por parte dos pescadores artesanais locais frente às questões legais do gerenciamento territorial desses pesqueiros pelos órgãos oficiais, utilizando uma abordagem etnográfica em nosso trabalho de campo, seguindo preceitos etnocientíficos, aspectos da etno-oceanografia e da socioantropologia marítima. Hoje, a disputa pelo domínio sobre esses recursos pesqueiros comuns (seja por órgãos governamentais conservacionistas ou de fomento à pesca, seja pela pressão política da pesca capitalista de escala industrial e da pesca esportiva amadora) cria frágeis mecanismos de regulação do acesso a esses pesqueiros tradicionais e aos recursos que neles ocorrem, quase sempre excluindo o pequeno pescador artesanal do processo de tomada de decisão e governança. Concluímos que esta regulação pesqueira, federal ou estadual, feita de cima para baixo ignorando deliberadamente as peculiaridades locais e os processos e mecanismos pelos quais os pescadores estabelecem, mantêm e defendem o usufruto ou a posse de espaços marítimos, confirma a hipótese de que este sistemático des-respeito atropela as regras tradicionais baseadas no direito consuetudinário e põe em risco a característica fundamental que rege e sustenta todo o universo sociocultural e simbólico dessas populações tradicionais locais: a sua liberdade e autonomia, ou seja, a capacidade de governarem a si próprios. / The present study aims to investigate the traditional knowledge and the patrimonial techniques used by the caiçaras fishermen population at the Anchieta Island and Flamengos Bay areas, at Ubatuba city, north shore of São Paulo state. This cumulative body of skills, orally transmitted, compound the traditional fishermen knowledge, an immaterial patrimony in which they underlay local sociocultural reproduction and customary management of the traditional pesqueiros3 (fishing grounds). We investigate through qualitative research the relationships between sea tenure, customary laws, social appropriation of the marine environment and the many conflicts that arise from the clash between this ancient local fisherfolk notion of ownership and the legal matters of territorial management of these pesqueiros by official agencies, using an ethnographic approach in our fieldwork, following ethnocientific precepts and also aspects of ethno-oceanography and maritime socio-anthropology. Today, the struggle for dominance over these common fishery resources (either by fomenting fishing or conservationists government agencies, either by capitalist industrial scale politics and amateur sport fishing lobbying), creates weak regulatory mechanisms for these fishing grounds and the resources from within, often excluding small fishermen from the decision-making process and governance. We conclude, confirming our hypothesis, that this federal or state fishing policies made top-down deliberately ignoring the local peculiarities and the processes and mechanisms by which groups establish, maintain and defend usufruct or possession of maritime spaces, run over and endangers the key feature that rules and sustains, by customary laws, all socio-cultural and symbolic universe of these traditional fisherfolk populations: their freedom and autonomy, the natural aptitude to govern themselves.

O presente estudo analisa os saberes e técnicas patrimoniais utilizadas pela população dos pescadores caiçaras que atuam na região da Ilha Anchieta e Enseada do Flamengo, em Ubatuba, litoral norte do Estado de São Paulo. Este corpo cumulativo de habilidades especiais, transmitidas oralmente, compõe o conhecimento tradicional pesqueiro local, patrimônio imaterial sobre o qual fundamentam sua reprodução sociocultural e o manejo de seus pesqueiros2 tradicionais. Abordamos através de pesquisa qualitativa não dirigida, as relações entre a apropriação social do ambiente marinho e os conflitos decorrentes do embate entre essa noção ancestral de propriedade por parte dos pescadores artesanais locais frente às questões legais do gerenciamento territorial desses pesqueiros pelos órgãos oficiais, utilizando uma abordagem etnográfica em nosso trabalho de campo, seguindo preceitos etnocientíficos, aspectos da etno-oceanografia e da socioantropologia marítima. Hoje, a disputa pelo domínio sobre esses recursos pesqueiros comuns (seja por órgãos governamentais conservacionistas ou de fomento à pesca, seja pela pressão política da pesca capitalista de escala industrial e da pesca esportiva amadora) cria frágeis mecanismos de regulação do acesso a esses pesqueiros tradicionais e aos recursos que neles ocorrem, quase sempre excluindo o pequeno pescador artesanal do processo de tomada de decisão e governança. Concluímos que esta regulação pesqueira, federal ou estadual, feita de cima para baixo ignorando deliberadamente as peculiaridades locais e os processos e mecanismos pelos quais os pescadores estabelecem, mantêm e defendem o usufruto ou a posse de espaços marítimos, confirma a hipótese de que este sistemático des-respeito atropela as regras tradicionais baseadas no direito consuetudinário e põe em risco a característica fundamental que rege e sustenta todo o universo sociocultural e simbólico dessas populações tradicionais locais: a sua liberdade e autonomia, ou seja, a capacidade de governarem a si próprios. / The present study aims to investigate the traditional knowledge and the patrimonial techniques used by the caiçaras fishermen population at the Anchieta Island and Flamengos Bay areas, at Ubatuba city, north shore of São Paulo state. This cumulative body of skills, orally transmitted, compound the traditional fishermen knowledge, an immaterial patrimony in which they underlay local sociocultural reproduction and customary management of the traditional pesqueiros3 (fishing grounds). We investigate through qualitative research the relationships between sea tenure, customary laws, social appropriation of the marine environment and the many conflicts that arise from the clash between this ancient local fisherfolk notion of ownership and the legal matters of territorial management of these pesqueiros by official agencies, using an ethnographic approach in our fieldwork, following ethnocientific precepts and also aspects of ethno-oceanography and maritime socio-anthropology. Today, the struggle for dominance over these common fishery resources (either by fomenting fishing or conservationists government agencies, either by capitalist industrial scale politics and amateur sport fishing lobbying), creates weak regulatory mechanisms for these fishing grounds and the resources from within, often excluding small fishermen from the decision-making process and governance. We conclude, confirming our hypothesis, that this federal or state fishing policies made top-down deliberately ignoring the local peculiarities and the processes and mechanisms by which groups establish, maintain and defend usufruct or possession of maritime spaces, run over and endangers the key feature that rules and sustains, by customary laws, all socio-cultural and symbolic universe of these traditional fisherfolk populations: their freedom and autonomy, the natural aptitude to govern themselves.