View source for DFM WG1 Themes and outputs

{{Note|text='''Group members:''' This is a draft list of suggested themes and outputs for DFM Working Group 1: Social Economy. You are welcome to add ideas here, or leave general comments or questions on the "Discussion" page.}}

==Themes of interest==
The following themes were identified at the WG1 meeting of December 16, 2020.
* feminist ecology, intersectionality, political ecology
*intra-household dynamics
*Migration (as affecting production and consumption of dried fish)
*Child labour, forced labour, exploitation
*Relational well-being (defining?)
*Value creation at each node in value chains -- socio-economic dimensions
*Gender-based labour, pay gaps, harassment
*Visualization as methodology; mapping, creative expression, visual displays, and collaborative authorship
*Distributive justice
*Changes in value chains (e.g., technological changes) and how they are experienced by actors within them
*Sensoriality of dried fish

== Key questions grouped by theme ==
This list is based on questions extracted from the presentations of [[DFM WG1 Country team priorities]], grouped here into thematic categories.

=== How dried fish processing contributes to the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people ===
This is a more descriptive project, and we may already have a good sense of the answers based on existing data.

* How much dried fish do the poor and vulnerable produce and eat? 
* How does dried fish production/processing/consumption fit within other livelihood options / activities? 
* How secure are dried fish-based livelihoods?

=== Political economy ===

* Possible tensions between nutritional, economic livelihoods/development, environmental, and social priorities (well-being, security, or sustainability). Potentially consider this in the context of the SDGs and national development plans -- intersection with WG3. Focus on how some actors/priorities are more powerful than others. 
* Competition between dried fish and fish meal (animal feed) value chains. 
* Competition between SSF and LSF. 
* Migrant workers vs. locals. 
* Competition over access to new or existing water bodies and other resources. 
* What these tensions tell us about the implications of power (political relations) on priorities.

=== Social relations (gender and kinship) in changing dried fish economies ===

* Explore intersectionality of gender, kinship, ethnicity, generation, etc. 
* Focus on women's labour in the context of broader shifts from household to commercialized labour; address women's change in status as they lose control of household economies.
* More broadly, explore how economic changes are connected to changes in social networks, organization, and identities. Solidarities, mutual aid. But also competition between groups.

=== Consumption: food and nutrition security and food preferences ===

* Cultural preferences, views of dried fish (see also "cultural heritage")
* How taste for dried fish changes or depends on context (e.g., as an emergency food). 
* Connect dietary preference to nutrition: there may be stigma against dried fish, leading to consumption of less nutritious or less secure (imported) foods. 
* Look at domestic production but also consumer demand.

=== Work and exploitation ===

* How exploitative labour relates to gender, ethnicity, migration, etc. 
* Perhaps a rights-based approach to dried fish value chains. Look at "blue economy" and related discourses. 
* Bonded labour and credit.

=== Adaptation ===

* How do fishers, processors, traders, and retailers adapt to environmental, technological, economic, and social change? 
* Describe and evaluate the significance of new practices -- e.g., migration, dietary change, use of new fishing sites, different forms of fish processing. 
* Product/market diversification and innovation (esp. retail, community-based, small-scale enterprises), both demand and supply driven.

=== COVID-19 impacts ===
Potentially a dimension of the "adaptation" theme above? 

* Impacts of COVID-19 on dried fish value chains
* Methodological implications for research in a state of emergency

=== Cultural heritage ===

* Dried fish in literature, religion, ceremony, etc. 
* Culinary tradition as heritage. 
* Impacts of migration and social change on the trade and consumption of dried fish.
* Efforts to preserve/safeguard and promote culinary heritage. 
* Sensorial dimensions.

==Outputs==

*conference panel
*video screening at MARE Conference
*ebooks (popular writing?)
* Research article linking value chains and social well-being
*Book or special issue synthesizing social economies of dried fish (based on country-level literature reviews?)
*Publishable versions of Scoping studies
*Collection of ethnographic studies
*Set of theoretical description documents (on wiki), as point of reference but also as support for future theoretical papers on dried fish.

[[Category:DFM Working Groups]]
[[Category:WG1]]
[[Category:Main]]