Document analysis

Documented sources and literature provide an historical perspective of what has been happening and can therefore provide a good entry point for a study of this kind which is interested in culturally and historically shaped activities. In this research, I spent time reviewing documents related to fisheries co-management from the time it was established (see section 1.6.3) to more recent documents which reflect a stronger interest in co- management and collaborative forms of social learning among fisheries resource users and government extension officers (this informed the historical perspectives that I have been able to provide already in the thesis – see Chapters 1 and 2) and also helped with understanding the other sources of data generated through interviews, focus groups and workshops.

I also carefully reviewed various fisheries reports mainly on the co-management programme with specific reference to the two research sites (south-east arm of Lake Malawi and Lake Malombe) to obtain more specific historical perspectives and insights. According to Merriam (2009) documents carry the culture, history and context of practice. They are not dependent upon the whims of human beings whose cooperation is essential for collecting good data through interviews and observations. The document analysis process aimed at understanding how the co-management approach has become infused into the fisheries sector with focus on social learning processes in both extension and training programmes that focused on co- management and participatory fisheries management. The documents which were analysed during the document analysis process are listed in the table that follows.

Table 4.2: List of documents analysed

Case study Documents analysed

Lake Malombe

1. Sampled reports from field extension officers and those compiled by the district fisheries officer to get an overview of the status of co-management from the grassroots

2. Co-management presentations in various workshops and conferences at national and international levels

3. Some minutes of staff and community meetings during the implementation of co-management

4. Research reports on proposed Lake Malombe management plans which were facilitated by GTZ project

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5. Published papers on Lake Malombe Fisheries Co- management Programme

6. Research reports on fisheries co-management programme in Lake Malombe

7. Management plan agreement report on the Chambo restoration for Lake Malombe

8. Fisheries and aquaculture policy South-east arm

of Lake Malawi

1. Sampled reports from field extension officers and those compiled by the district fisheries officer to get an overview of the status of co-management from the grassroots

2. Chambo Restoration Strategic Plan 2003-2005 3. National Environmental Policy

4. Revised Community Participation Fisheries Act 1997

5. Fisheries stock assessment report for south-east arm of lake Malawi

6. Annual statistical reports 2003-2013

7. Decentralisation process for Mangochi District and the local structures

8. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report

a. Ecosystem and human well-being – Biodiversity synthesis

b. Living beyond our means – Natural Assets and Human Well-being

Malawi College of Fisheries

1. College curricula (old and revised)

2. Syllabi for the three programmes offered at the college (pre- service, in-service and user community)

3. Materials developed by the Community Outreach Unit established to develop extension materials for extension officers and communities

4. Previous curriculum review reports by external consultants 5. Fisheries and aquaculture policy

The documents listed above were collected from Mangochi District Office responsible for both Lake Malombe and the south-east arm of Lake Malawi. Extension officers from both sites submitted monthly reports to the District Fisheries Officer who compiled a district monthly report to the Director of Fisheries. My interest was to get an overview of fisheries co-management with a focus on learning that takes place among co-management stakeholders (see section 1.7.2). In order to ascertain the general status of co-management activities and with the aid of the District Fisheries Officer, we sampled monthly reports of the early, middle and current co-management programmes. I also looked at key reports from different projects which participated in the programme as well as key symposia reports and presentations. From the college I collected the previous and current curricula, some research reports conducted by the college, the fisheries and aquaculture policy and other relevant reports. With reference to the research questions I went through all the sampled documents, coded them by themes and

linked them to the four research questions (see section 1.7.3), to see how they were responding to the research questions.

Kaniki (2006) argued that a research project does not exist in isolation but must be built upon what has been done previously, and researchers should thoroughly review previous work in the field and/or knowledge of their research focus. The document analysis process prevented me from repeating what other researchers had done and also helped to provide some basic information about co-management and to identify gaps that this research would try to respond to. Documents provide first-hand information on what has been done in the context and what is significant to CHAT researchers as they capture important dimensions of the cultural histories and records of activity in and between activity systems. The analysis of the above documents was used for this purpose, in the same manner that the interviews and observations also helped in the capturing of important information on the cultural histories and activities. Merriam (2009) argued that data from documents can be used in the same manner as data from interviews or observations. My contextual profile (see section 1.7.1) further supported data from different sources of documents especially those on fisheries resource management. A number of research documents produced by other scholars from the Fisheries Department and researchers active in the region focussing on natural resources management informed the scope and direction of the study (see for example the reports on co-management in other lake areas presented in Chapter 2). I struggled to find materials on fisheries co-management in the fisheries libraries and I had to track such documents via individuals and through this strategy I often managed to get personal copies for my use. This in itself is an interesting finding for activity theory research in an extension training context: these would potentially be important mediating tools in Fisheries Colleges and education contexts, yet they appeared to be absent in the Malawian fisheries training context (see Chapter 7 for further reflection on this).