Women's changing productive practices, gender relations and identities in fishing through a critical feminisation perspective

Abstract

In recent years there has been increased academic and policy attention to the important contributions of women in fishing families, communities and industries. Whilst it is important to make visible these contributions, there has been little attention to how women's different and changing roles and practices are associated with (un)changed gender relations shaping, and being shaped by, women's (fishing) identities in different ways. To attend to this gap, the paper reviews and critically re-interprets literature on women's changing practices in fishing. The review is conceptually framed by drawing on – and going beyond – the feminisation approach developed in research on agriculture – incorporating key criticisms of the feminisation concept from other research fields. By reviewing and re-interpreting the literature on women in fishing through this critical feminisation approach, the intention is to examine how women's productive practices are associated with particular and changing gender relations and identities. In doing so, the paper identifies gaps in research and suggests avenues for future empirical, theoretical and methodological research on women in fishing. In terms of future directions for empirical research, the paper suggests there is a need for more research on women's practices going under the labels of ‘progressive’ and ‘reconstitutive’ feminisation. Further, and more importantly, the paper proposes new directions for future research focusing on women's subjectivities and identities as well as their working conditions. The paper also argues there is a need for relational approaches as well as more in-depth and emplaced empirical research on women's messy everyday lives to gain understandings of women's lives ‘in their own right’ in varying socio-spatial contexts.