Fishing community resilience to harmful algal blooms: social capital narratives of the 2016 crisis in southern Chile.

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) represent a critical environmental challenge for coastal social-ecological systems, generating risks to human health, livelihoods, food security, and ecosystem services. The unprecedented 2016 HAB crisis in southern Chile, triggered by the northward expansion of the paralytic toxin-producing dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella, caused extended fishing closures and severe socio-economic disruptions across artisanal fishing communities in the Los Lagos and Los Ríos regions. Despite effective monitoring and management systems that largely prevented human poisoning, previous research has highlighted persistent challenges related to trust, participation, communication, and the integration of local knowledge in HAB governance. To examine these social and relational dimensions, this study analyzes community narratives of the 2016 HAB crisis through a social capital lens, drawing on 64 participants engaged in five participatory workshops conducted in the rural coastal villages of Mississippi, Huiro, Bahía Mansa, Pasaje Amortajado, and Carelmapu. Using a participatory elicited letter-writing approach, we collected and analyzed narratives associated with bonding, bridging, and linking social relationships to: (1) document how participants represented the impacts and consequences of the HAB crisis; (2) examine how social relationships were described and attributed meaning in participants' accounts; and (3) explore the implications of these narratives for understanding adaptive capacity, community resilience, and future HAB governance. The results portray HABs as protracted socio-environmental crises marked by economic disruption, emotional distress, dietary changes, and interpretations of environmental change. Bonding narratives emphasized family support, intergenerational knowledge, and cultural continuity. Bridging narratives highlighted the circulation of experiential warnings, environmental observations, and calls for collective organization among fishing communities. Linking narratives expressed concerns regarding institutional transparency, communication, and participation in environmental governance. Across all three dimensions, the letters transformed memories of the 2016 crisis into future-oriented reflections, communicating lessons, concerns, warnings, and recommendations directed toward future generations and future HAB events. The findings demonstrate the value of interpreting community narratives through a social capital lens for understanding how coastal communities experience, remember, and interpret environmental crises. By revealing the social resources, collective memories, and future-oriented reflections embedded in local narratives, this study contributes to discussions of adaptive capacity and community resilience while highlighting the potential of participatory narrative approaches to inform more legitimate, participatory, and adaptive HAB governance.