The impact of commercial fishing on the miskito economy: the case of Tasbapauni

Abstract

This article’s objective is to analyze the impact of commercial fishing on the local economy of Tasbapauni in the latter half of the 20th Century. It is based on field material collected in the village in the 1990s. There have been few attempts to map the characteristic features of the economic system of the Miskito. Much of the research conducted after the Sandinista revolution in 1979, dealt more with ethnic and political issues, than with economic ones, with some exceptions that include the works of Noveck, McDonald, Vilas and Hale.  In this article, the author considers selected aspects of the works of Mary Helms and Bernard Nietschmann, which, although written some years before the revolution, contain the most thorough and penetrating analysis of the Miskito economy to date.