US Virgin Islands Fishing Community Resilience: Informing a Research Agenda

For fishers throughout the Caribbean, major storm events such as hurricanes are a significant component of their life experiences. Over the past few decades, fishers in the US Virgin Islands (USVI) frequently experienced major storms and their aftermath, including Hurricanes Hugo (1989), Marilyn (1995), and Irma and Maria (2017). Using the resilience literature as our theoretical lens, we provide historical context and analyze current preliminary data on fishers' perspectives to develop a better understanding of fishers' and institutional responses to storms. We examine individual experiences and interactions with the institutions engaged in direct storm relief and post-storm fishery management. Preliminary analysis of these fishers' perspectives is used to inform recommendations for a future research agenda by identifying the variables most prominent in both the resilience literature and fishers' experiences.