Customary marine tenure in the South Pacific : the uses and challenges of mapping.

This article reports on research carried out to examine the impact of customary tenure systems on marine management and to determine the appropriateness of incorporating such systems into more formal systems of fisheries management. The article critically examines the use of mapping exercises during the research and argues that while the mapping stimulated discussion of the research issue it actually constituted an intervention in the situation being researched. The paper highlights the risk of outsiders influencing the outcome of a participatory analysis, such that decisions reached by local people are more directed at outsiders and their assumed objectives than their own priorities.