Reframing exploitation: Assessing the utility of the seafood slavery trope

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Seafood slavery refers to various forms of forced labour, human trafficking, debt bondage, and other abusive practices experienced by workers in the commercial fishing sector. It is a powerful trope in international campaigns highlighting the different forms of exploitation experienced by migrant fishers in global seafood supply chains. These campaigns are, however, largely silent about the experiences of domestic fishers employed by domestic fleets in domestic waters. This study shows that these domestic fishers may be subjected to equally bad – if not worse – conditions than migrant fishers employed on foreign fleets. Drawing on observational data and a total of 307 interviews, we demonstrate that Indonesia’s domestic fishers in fact meet all criteria identified in the literature on seafood slavery. We then assess the implications, both positive and negative, of using the seafood slavery trope to describe the exploitation they experience. Based on this assessment, we argue that – while the seafood slavery trope potentially offers some of the same benefits in terms of attracting public attention – its focus on extreme forms of exploitation, and emphasis on the criminal rather than then the industrial mean that it is ultimately poorly suited for either cohort. The concept of labour justice, we conclude, offers a better way to identify concrete steps that can be taken to begin to address the system.