Changing Tides: Gender, Fisheries and Globalization

Fisheries are among the most globalized economic sectors in the world. Relying largely on wild resources and employing millions of people and feeding many millions more, fisheries provide a unique vantage point from which to view contemporary globalization, which is co-occurring with a major ecological revolution triggered by resource degradation and associated with the development of intensive aquaculture. Globalization is intensifying the export orientation and use of joint ventures between rich and poor countries in fisheries. International organizations such as the IMF are pressuring many debtor countries to exchange access to their fishery resources for access to foreign exchange, constraining their ability to limit external ownership and the export of resources, and threatening local fishery employment and food self-sufficiency. Changing Tides brings together contributions from researchers and community workers from 13 countries of the world. Juxtaposing academic case studies with accounts from activists and fisheries workers, this book points the ways in which globalization and associated resource degradation, privatization and the concentration of ownership and control in fisheries are jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of women fish workers and their families.

Marian Binkley, an anthropologist, has conducted extensive research in maritime communities. Her first two books, Voices from Off Shore (1994) and Risks, Dangers and Rewards (1995) focus on working conditions, in the Nova Scotian deep sea fishing fleet. Her next monograph, Set Adrift: Fishing Families compares coastal and deep sea fishermen’s households in their adaptations to the extraordinary pressures put upon them by the current Atlantic Canadian fisheries crisis and its effects on these men’s work. Her lastest volume Gender, Globalization and the Fishery, co-edited with Barbara Neis, Siri Gerard and Christina Manezy, explores the relationship between globalization and gender against the backdrop of the world fisheries crisis. Professor Binkley’s current research extends in two directions. One project examines the relationship between tourism and sustainable livelihoods. The other project looks at the relationships between the cod fish moratorium and occupational health and safety concerns of fishers of Newfoundland and Labrador. Professor Binkley has also been involved in development projects in the West Indies, Indonesia, and the Philippines, focusing on resource management and other environmental concerns.

Siri Gerrard is an associate professor in the Department of Planning and Community Studies at the University of Tromsø, Norway.

Siri’s research interests include: ethnography, social anthropology and gender and feminist studies. Her research focuses more particularly on fisheries, fisheries policies, fishing communities, work, employment and development in North Norway, but also in Tanzania and Cameroon, studied by means of cultural and gender perspectives. Siri’s current research project is entitled, “towards “new” fishery communities?” This project looks at the changes that have taken place in fishing and other types of local employment, in fishery households, community life and children’s activities within the framework of small fishing villages. The changes have occurred in a period where fish resources, regulation systems with quotas are being restructured. At the same time there are changes in education, labour market and viewpoints on men’s and women’s roles and positions in society. One of the key findings so far, is that the male fishers, and the women as well as youngsters, are very mobile individuals with non-fixed perceptions of gender and gender roles. Accordingly, the household becomes mobile with different houses at different places. With these kinds of mobilities and changes, it seems necessary to deconstruct the concepts of household, fishery community and fisher.

Maria Cristina Maneschy teaches sociology at the Universidade Federal do Pará [Federal University of Pará State], Brazil.

Dr. Neis is a Full Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Co-Director of SafetyNet, a Community Research Alliance on Health and Safety in Marine and Coastal Work. She has extensively researched many aspects of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery, including issues related to occupational health, knowledge systems, industrial restructuring, fisheries policy, and gender and fisheries. Dr. Neis has extensive experience with working in interdisciplinary teams and in collaborative research with community partners. She has supervised and co-supervised graduate students in many different disciplines, including Sociology, Women’s Studies, Geography, Environmental Studies, and Engineering. Dr. Neis’ current areas of research focus include studies on occupational asthma in snow crab processing workers and fishing vessel safety (both funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research), the human health impacts of restructuring in the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries (funded by Health Canada, the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health, SSHRC and NSERC), and local ecological knowledge and science (funded by SSHRC and NSERC). In addition, she is part of a team of researchers exploring the relationships between gender and globalization within fisheries (funded by SSHRC).