ABSTRACT
The Philippines is a good example in the Asia and the Pacific of a country in which rural-urban migration has led to massive informal urban sectors and persistent urban poverty. Therefore, it also makes sense to continue exploring rural employment opportunities. This paper focuses on the impact of collective action dynamics on the livelihood resilience of Philippine’s seaweed growing communities. Here we explain the successes and failures of collective action efforts among coastal communities in four Philippine provinces. The empirical insights are based on 41 semi-structured interviews (conducted in the Provinces of Guimaras, Palawan, Sorsogon, and Iloilo between 2016 and 2018) and 48 surveys in Iloilo (24 in 2015 and the same 24 seaweed farmers in December 2018). This contribution reveals the complexities of utilizing community support structures as a means of compensating for market and government failures. A gap continues to exist between collective action initiatives and household level capabilities.
