We are very excited to announce the publication of “Dried fish at the intersection of food science, economy, and culture: A global survey” in the journal Fish and Fisheries. This major literature survey from the Dried Fish Matters project is the result of a collaborative effort to catalogue and analyze more than 1100 publications directly concerning dried fish.
Our survey demonstrates the important and varied nature of the contributions that dried fish make to the food and nutrition security, health, livelihoods, and social and cultural well-being of people around the world. Among the three thematic categories of food, economic, and cultural values that we elaborate in this survey, we find the dried fish literature most heavily focused on food value, followed by economic value. The importance of social relational and aesthetic values of dried fish for consuming populations thus merit much greater attention. Other major lacunae are the ecological relations on which dried fish economies depend and attention to questions of political economy and governance that are required to assure the sector continues to supply adequate, nutritious, and safe foods, in ways that are sustainable and just. Without the sustainability of fisheries as a natural resource, all values of dried fish are undermined.
| Thematic cluster | Themes | Examples of subthemes | Items in dried fish sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food value | Food scienceFood and nutrition security and health | Food safetyChemical analysisDerivative product development | 75% (N = 851) |
| Economic value | Value chains, economy, and labourEcology | International tradeLabourValue chainsMicroeconomicsPolitical ecology | 23% (N = 264) |
| Cultural heritage value | Culture and social relationsHistory and change | CultureSocial relationsWell-beingFood and cookingGender | 18% (N = 208) |
This Open Access paper is available to read and download free of charge from publisher website.
The paper is accompanied by several online resources, including the active Zotero library, full bibliographic dataset for our dried fish sample, source graphs generated by an online query engine, and software tools developed for the review.
Abstract
Dried fish—here defined broadly as aquatic animals preserved using simple techniques, such as sun-drying, salting, fermentation, and smoking that permit storage as foods at ambient temperature for extended periods without specialized packaging—have received little direct attention in fisheries research. This lack of visibility belies their historical and contemporary importance. Prior to the introduction of refrigeration, dried fish were the main form in which fisheries catches were traded and consumed. Dried fish products remain a core component of production, trade, diets, and cuisines across the world, particularly in the Global South. The dried fish sector provides employment for millions of people, particularly women, who comprise most of the fish-drying workforce in many locations. However, the sector also confronts and creates significant challenges including food safety concerns and exploitative labour conditions. This paper is the first systematic assessment of the global literature on dried fish, comprised of a sample of >1100 references. In contrast to the general fisheries literature, which is dominated by studies of ecology and governance and focusses mainly on primary production, the dried fish literature is dominated by studies from food science and concentrates on the processing segment of fish value chains. As such, it offers valuable reference point for fisheries research, which is becoming increasingly attentive to food systems. This paper uncovers a wealth of insights buried in this largely unheralded literature, and identifies key thematic intersections, gaps and research questions that remain to be addressed in the study of dried fish.
Reference
Belton, Ben, Derek Johnson, Eric Thrift, Jonah Olsen, Mostafa Hossain, and Shakuntala Thilsted. 2022. “Dried Fish at the Intersection of Food Science, Economy, and Culture: A Global Survey.” Fish and Fisheries. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12664.