New research paper published!
A new article focusing on women’s diverse roles in fishing has been published this month, reviewing fisheries research from around the world.
The paper is published in the Journal of Rural Studies and sheds light on how women’s changing practices have shaped gender relations and identities within the fishing industry.
It uses the concept of feminisation as a framework to review existing literature in the field and suggests topics for future research to boost understanding of women’s fishing lives.
Dr Madeleine Gustavsson, author of the study and Women in Fisheries lead researcher, said:
“This research demonstrates the need to move beyond documenting women’s vulnerability and create an understanding of women's lives from their own perspectives – taking into account their own identities, and everyday experiences.”
To create a research plan for the future, the study recommends four key areas which should be tackled.
The first focuses on the ‘messiness’ of women’s interactions with the fishing industry and suggests that research should embrace this complexity – rather than trying to fit lived experiences into neat categories.
The second area relates to the portrayal of women as victims and calls for a more sophisticated understanding of their lives in fishing industries and communities.
Context is vital, and the third area recommends that women’s experiences should be viewed in relation to the specific situations they inhabit, whether they be at different points in geography or time.
Finally, the paper suggests that greater attention should be paid to the working conditions of women in fishing industries. This work should focus on the unstable nature of working conditions for women and seek to understand how these might affect people differently.
The study’s full title is “Women's changing productive practices, gender relations and identities in fishing through a critical feminisation perspective”.
It can be accessed and downloaded free of charge here doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.06.006.