FISHERMAN SOCIAL NETWORK IN TANAKEKE ISLAND TAKALAR REGENCY SOUTH SULAWESI PROVINCE

Abstract

Ecosystem damage leading to ecological changes in coastal and marine areas has direct implications for society in that region. Response is the first step of an adaptation strategy by society that is resulted from understanding via the impact of ecological changes that occured. This study was conducted to find out how fishermen adopt strategy through ecological changes in coastal and marine areas that located in Tanakeke Island Takalar Regency South Sulawesi Province using social network approach as an option of adaptation strategy. The result showed that there are some of adaptation strategies, but social networks is by far the most effective adaptation strategy for Tanakeke Island fishermen households due to the fact that there is a strong interaction among fishermen in that community. Kinship, cooperation, and mutual trust can be used as a basic to perform social networks in Tanakeke Island fishermen community. Moreover, there is still relatively high emotional ties among Tanakeke Island fishermen based on the principle of kinship, brotherhood, and neighbourhood values for giving opportunity to build and utilize social network functions. The forms of social networks in Tanakeke Island fishermen community are kinship horizontal network (bonding), mixture of friendship and neighbourhood horizontal network (bridging), and vertical network between patron and client (linking). The usage of these social networks as an adaptation strategy to ecological changes in Kepulauan Tanakeke coastal and marine areas are to anticipate family hardship or economic pressure in order to maintain the survival of Tanakeke island fishermen.