A Rising Tide Does Not Lift All Boats: Intersectional Analysis Reveals Inequitable Impacts of the Seafood Trade in Fishing Communities

Caroline E Ferguson

doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.625389

Abstract

Seafood is the world’s most traded food commodity, and the international trade in seafood is promoted as a development strategy in low-income coastal communities across the globe. However, the seafood trade can drive negative social and environmental impacts in fishing communities, and whether the benefits of trade actually reach fishers is a subject of ongoing scholarship. Furthermore, scholars and policymakers have tended to treat fishing communities as homogeneous, assuming that trade policies will impact all members equally. Yet individual community members have different roles, statuses, and entitlements according to their intersecting identities, meaning that different fishers will be differently impacted by the seafood trade. In particular, women occupy different positions than men in seafood value chains and in fishing communities. There are also important within-group differences among men and among women depending on their nationality, marital status, and other identity markers. Through 205 surveys, 54 interviews, and ethnographic field methods conducted in fifteen rural Palauan fishing communities between November 2019 and March 2020, this case study of the sea cucumber trade in Palau brings together theories of gender, intersectionality, and access to answer the question, “How are the harms and benefits of the seafood trade distributed in fishing communities?” In this case, men benefited more than women from the export of sea cucumbers by leveraging access to technology; knowledge; and authority, and the trade depleted resources relied on primarily by women for their food security and livelihoods. An intersectional analysis revealed that marital status and nationality determined access among women, with married women having greater access than unmarried women and immigrant women having greater access than immigrant men, demonstrating the importance of intersectionality as an analytical tool.

Highlights

As the global seafood trade rapidly expands (Gephart and Pace, 2015), the export of high-value fisheries products from coastal communities to luxury markets is promoted as a vehicle for poverty alleviation (Barclay et al, 2019)
We know that fishing communities are diverse across many dimensions, including gender (Harper et al, 2020), ethnicity (Lau and Scales, 2016), power and class (Colwell et al, 2017), religious denomination and place of birth (Rohe et al, 2018), and nationality (Yingst and Skaptadóttir, 2018), as well as other identity markers, which intersect with one another (Hooks, 1984; Collins, 1986; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991)
We offered multiple gender responses, including “transgender,” “non-binary,” and “other,” 100% of respondents self-identified as “woman” or “man.” results are reported in alignment with these categories

Summary

Introduction

As the global seafood trade rapidly expands (Gephart and Pace, 2015), the export of high-value fisheries products from coastal communities to luxury markets is promoted as a vehicle for poverty alleviation (Barclay et al, 2019). Whether the benefits of trade reach fishers is a subject of ongoing scholarship (e.g., Béné et al, 2010; Crona et al, 2015; O’Neill et al, 2018), and case studies from across the globe show that trade can have harmful impacts on fishing communities and their resources (e.g., Porter et al, 2008; Campling, 2012; Fabinyi et al, 2018; Nolan, 2019). Fishers’ identities shape their access to marine resources and their interactions with globalized seafood markets (Porter et al, 2008; Fabinyi et al, 2018; O’Neill et al, 2018). I examine whether and how different fishers are impacted differently by the seafood trade according to their intersecting identities

Methods

Results

Conclusion