Outside Little Boston on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state in July 2025.

From an early age, two of my biggest interests in life have been fishing and human diversity. These interests have guided my life in ways that continue to fundamentally shape my values and outlook on life. Over time, as my experiences have confronted and molded my understandings, I’ve come to see that these interests have deeply influenced each other, and that at their convergence is a deeper and broadly applicable recognition that culture shapes the interactions and relationships between people, other living beings, and the environments they share. Engagement with diverse research projects over the course of my career, including my time so far with Sweet Grass, has rewarded me with considerable insight into the fundamental role culture plays in shaping human-environment interactions.

To help illustrate and unpack this insight, I’ll focus on two specific projects: 1) my dissertation research on recreational fishing in southwest Florida, and 2) a fishing-focused market study for Bellingham, Washington-based Pacific Northwest Tribal Lending that is currently underway. Though these are very different projects with different aims and objectives, they both engage my interests in fishing and human diversity, as well as highlight the way culture shapes human-environment interactions.

How culture is defined

Briefly, it’s worth defining what I mean by culture. Culture is a concept that can feel familiar and straightforward until we attempt to provide a concrete definition. Even anthropologists, who elevate culture as their primary focus, do not always agree on how to define culture, or where to look for it. Some focus on symbolic representation and meaning, others on language and ideology, and still others on economic arrangements. While I think there are multiple useful definitions for different contexts and applications, the definition that most resonates with me comes from a subfield of cultural anthropology known as cognitive anthropology, which focuses on the way culture guides people’s thoughts and perceptions. In a 1957 publication, anthropologist Ward Goodenough defined culture as “whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members.” This definition centers the role of culture in cognition, highlighting the ways that the mental frameworks we rely on to understand and operate within the world are shaped and shared by the social group(s) we belong to. In other words, being a member of a particular cultural group means we tend to understand and think about the world in similar ways to other members of that group.

School of mullet in Port Charlotte, Florida. Photo courtesy of Max Van Oostenburg.

As a graduate student in cultural anthropology at the University of Florida, I examined the ways that culture informs how people interact with the natural environment by focusing specifically on the activity of recreational fishing. Far from a trivial activity in that part of the world, recreational fishing is a deeply revered pastime and significant driver of economic activity in Florida’s coastal regions. Through participant observation, interviews, and surveys, I found that, despite great diversity with respect to things like fishing gear, keeping vs. catch-and-release, age, and more, the recreational anglers I surveyed overwhelmingly shared a basic cultural framework for what it means to fish in an “acceptable” manner. Within this shared framework, however, there were a few points of cognitive divergence that accurately predicted differences in the way people responded to hypothetical moral dilemmas. I generated these hypothetical moral dilemmas based on extensive fieldwork, aiming to get a better understanding of how fishers’ cognitive frameworks about “appropriate” fishing practices translated to actions. For example, one hypothetical dilemma read:

During the prolonged red tide event that spanned from late 2017 to early 2019 in many parts of the area, some residential canals were spared and effectively became safe zones for many fish. In fact, some have reported that the fishing was especially productive in these canals during this time. Given the dramatic fish kills associated with this red tide event, how do you feel about the idea of people concentrating their fishing efforts in these canals during that period? Please explain your reasoning.

Essentially, this prompt asked respondents to decide whether it is morally acceptable to recreationally fish in an area where fish are seeking refuge from severe environmental disruption. Using a fancy statistical technique called cultural consensus analysis, I found that the degree to which individual fishers personally aligned with the shared (or “culturally correct”) framework of acceptable fishing practices significantly impacted their responses to this moral dilemma prompt. Those who were more aligned with the shared cultural framework were statistically more likely to say that people should not have fished in these residential canal safe zones during red tide, while those that were less aligned with the shared framework were more likely to see fishing under the conditions laid out in the prompt as perfectly acceptable.

More specifically, those who felt that the fishing described in the prompt scenario was not acceptable were far more likely to rationalize their position out of concern for the well-being of fish and the environment, while those who felt that the fishing described in the scenario was acceptable were much more likely to rationalize their position by appealing to the idea that humans have a fundamental right to use nature for their own benefit. This, I suggest, is strong evidence for the power of culture (in the form of mental frameworks) to inform the way people interact with the natural environment and the beings that inhabit it. Within the culture of recreational fishing in southwest Florida, despite a broadly shared overarching framework for acceptable fishing, there appears to be a sub-cultural distinction between those who understand nature as existing primarily to support humans (e.g., those who see fishing with an advantage caused by environmental disruption as acceptable), and those who understand humans to be responsible for helping ensure nature’s well-being (e.g., those who see fishing with an advantage caused by environmental disruption as unacceptable).

The role of culture in human-environment interactions

Though the Pacific Northwest Tribal Lending Fisheries Market Study is still in its early stages, the role of culture as a moderator of human-environment interaction is clear. Western commercial fishing is geared toward profit maximization, reflecting a cultural-cognitive framework that positions human prosperity above all other considerations. Indigenous fishers, on the other hand, tend to operate from a way of being in the world that does not elevate human needs above the needs of other beings or the health of the environment. While they do seek to earn a living and provide for their communities, there is a deep respect for the fish that make it all possible, and a strong sense of responsibility for ensuring that there are healthy fish populations for future generations to catch and consume. I am painting with a broad brush here, and there are of course exceptions, but generally we can see the same kind of distinction between cultural-cognitive frameworks that I encountered among recreational anglers in southwest Florida. On the Western commercial fishing side of things, nature exists for human extraction and benefit; from an Indigenous standpoint, nature has a right to exist on its own terms, and humans must engage with it in a manner that does not disrupt its balance.

From an Indigenous standpoint, nature has a right to exist on its own terms, and humans must engage with it in a manner that does not disrupt its balance.

As the Fisheries Market Study progresses, attentiveness to differences in (and impacts of) cultural frameworks for thinking about the relationship between humans and the environment will continue to be important. The primary goal of the study (to better understand the needs, aspirations, and challenges for Indigenous fishers in the Northwest) requires building an understanding of the way fishers themselves think about what they do. With this understanding, the goal will be to identify the kinds of support Pacific Northwest Tribal Lending may be able to provide to help overcome challenges, meet needs, and fulfill aspirations. Whether these solutions come in the form of lending products, industry-specific financial education, or other forms of support, understanding the cultural contexts that shape the Northwest’s Indigenous fishing industry will be vital to ensuring solutions are meaningful and sustainable.

Share