ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we aim to document the dynamic and sometimes contradictory processes that characterise the governance of fishing commons in Comcáac territory in the Sonoran Desert of Northwest Mexico, where ongoing processes of (de)commonisation are inevitably entangled with place, fish, social traditions of decision-making, and symbolic representations of the community, among other material-discursive elements. We trace historically the processes of collective action that emerged among the Comcáac to govern property rights over fish and fishing territories, which provides fertile ground for better understanding dynamic processes of (de)commonisation. First, we draw on some emerging relational approaches for re-thinking commons as commoning, as embodied, ongoing and historically situated sets of relations between humans and nonhumans. We make connections between commoning and (de)commonisation to identify promising intersections. Then, we present three key moments in the history of Comcáac collective action that have shifted the governance of fishing commons. We conclude by raising some important considerations necessary for advancing a critical and relational understanding of commons, including: the importance of examining who benefits from processes of (de)commonisation, attending to the ways in which processes of (de)commonisation are embedded in broader assemblages of national policies, discourses, and understandings of the world, and examining the important role of nonhumans and more-than-human entanglements that constitute diverse forms of commoning and make possible the institutional dimensions of commonisation.
