Women’s work, survival strategies and capitalist modernization in South Indian small-scale fisheries: the case of Kerala

Abstract

Women’s work in fisheries in the Global South is valorized for its role in sustaining small-scale fishing in the face of complex challenges from corporate-backed industrial fishing. This paper examines how capitalist modernization of fisheries and its attendant changes have transformed the worlds of work of artisanal fisherwomen in a Latin Catholic fisher village in the South Indian state of Kerala. Using ethnographic research and qualitative methods, the paper explores women’s interfaces and antagonisms with new actors in the commission shops and seashore auctions where they procure fish as well as the public fish markets where they sell fish. The paper discusses women’s survival strategies in the face of growing competition in the vending business and examines their implications for women’s engagement in collective action for improved work conditions and the rights of artisanal fish workers.