Expanding the horizons: connecting gender and fisheries to the political economy

Abstract

Since 1990, papers presented at successive women/gender and fisheries conferences of the Asian Fisheries Society have followed a pathway trodden by other fields of gender research. Starting with noticing androcentrism in fisheries, the conferences proceeded to noticing the omissions and adding depth of detail on women’s roles and their contributions. Adding gender perspectives then helped to identify politicized policy and power structures and recognize the importance of accounting for intersectionality, as well as propose transformation. Historically, this work is rooted in the broader scholarship on gender and fisheries, in which the positions of women are dictated by the prevailing political economy of fisheries, itself embedded in the global political economy. Despite the greater insights, the position of women has changed little. The time is therefore ripe for gender and fisheries researchers to broaden their horizons and develop a feminist fisheries political economy agenda to better support activism for gender equal fisheries. A foundation for such work has already been laid in fisheries from the gender studies and activism of fisheries restructuring under globalization. The global feminist political economy project also has paved the way. The global project can be adapted to guide three major fisheries research areas. The first is understanding the gendered structures in fisheries economies as embedded in the gendered global economy. The second key is specifically assessing fisheries economic policies and practices using the lens of women’s rights in the fish value chain, from production inputs to rights of access to fish and fishing, and to women’s position in post-harvest processing and marketing. The third is examining the unpaid and household economy in which a great deal of women’s fisheries and reproductive work in the household and community is done. As the new research agenda and its link to activism may not be embraced by some mainstream agencies already studying gender and fisheries, do we need to create feminist fisheries political economy think tanks with greater flexibility?