Undefining Small-Scale Fisheries in India: Challenging Simplifications and Highlighting Diversity and Value

Abstract

Indian marine fishers and fishing practices vary considerably, from semi-industrial boats crewed by two-dozen to the lone fisher paddling a tiny canoe. It is difficult to capture this in simple statistical measurements, leaving much of the small-scale sector as less-than-legible. Policymakers often default to defining fishers – and particularly the small-scale – in the aggregate as locked in poverty and part of the underdeveloped “backward classes.” This view results in development focused on capitalizing and “modernizing.” This paper seeks to challenge this reductionist perspective. Following a discussion of the difficulty in defining small-scale fisheries (SSF), the paper reviews of the Indian fisheries development context. Analysis of census data from India’s Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute examines the questionable but widespread generalization that Indian SSF are synonymous with poverty. The analysis finds considerable variability in the characteristics of fishing communities and the predictors of poverty within and across geographies. Inspired by the social wellbeing framework, the paper finally attempts to describe India’s small-scale fisheries in terms beyond simplistic techno-economic measures. This more nuanced statistical picture of India’s fisheries questions the narrative that SSF are inherently destitute and leads to an argument that politics, policy and scholarship should shun overly simplified economic abstractions and reconsider the diversity and values of SSF.