E-book editorial review

This is a reviewer listing and sign-up sheet for the DFM e-book. Our intention is that each of our 29 manuscripts will be reviewed by a section editor and by someone else from the project, and brief comments returned to each author by MARCH 2, 2022. Contributors will then have two weeks to complete any revisions they wish to make. This review process is not expected to be rigorous and evaluative in the sense of a journal peer review; instead, reviewers will focus primarily on flow and clarity (does the text flow in a logical way? Is it easy for a non-specialist reader to follow?) and offer general comments, questions, or suggestions for the authors, in the spirit of sharing ideas across the DFM Partnership. The section editors may draw on reviewer comments in writing a brief (1000-word) synthesis of their section, and again in the overall synthesis chapter that is planned for the conclusion of this e-book.

We invite all e-book contributors to volunteer to review at least one other chapter. Please type your name in the "Reviewers" column in the table below, next to the title and synopsis for any chapter you would be interested in reading, or let us know by e-mail (dried.fish.matters@umanitoba.ca). The section editors will be in touch with you to share the manuscript and further instructions. Any chapters that do not have volunteer reviewers by February 9 will be assigned manually by the section editors.

Please note that the section titles and arrangement of chapters are subject to change. Some chapters may end up in a different section from the one in which they are currently listed.

Title	Synopsis	Reviewers
RECIPES. Section editors: Raktima and Mahfuz (with help from Ratana).
Dried fish recipes with coconut milk (Koralagama D N & Hettiarachchi H A N D)	Sri Lanka is a multicultural country with a high diversity of all aspects of living including culinary art. Cooking styles are diverse not only among ethnicities but also from region to region, community to community and person to person. Sri Lanka has its own unique and traditional culinary art using coconut milk and spices. These recipes have been practised since time immemorial. Recipes for dried anchovy and queenfish preparation in spicy coconut milk are shared in this publication.	Sai Leela
Dried fish recipes (Dr. Sai Leela Modem)	Dry fish is an integral part of the diet of our family. The recipes have been carried through generations from our ancestors to the present generation. My Grandmother's recipes are unique to our region. The recipes are prepared with various types of dry fish such as anchovy, ribbon fish, seer etc.
Let There Be Bounty Every Day (Parag Tandel in collaboration with Sara Ahmed)	(Recipe: Davla/Sea-purslane and dried Shrimp/prawn curry with Rice / Roti) Parag Tandel, a Mumbai-based artist from the Koli (fisher-folk) community, is the co-founder of the Tandel Fund of Archives which seeks to document the community’s cultural practices, music and the arts through participatory practice embedded in oral traditions. Food is at the heart of this extensive effort. During the strict lockdown from late March to end-May 2020, fresh fish was largely unavailable to the community as all livelihood activities had ceased. So Tandel and his mother opened up their reserve of dried seafood. To preserve and store food, including various fish, is a common custom amongst the Kolis. They believe that dry fish tastes best in the Monsoon only when fishing is restricted, both because the seas are stormy and to allow for fish stock to replenish (sustainability). Every week the artist (and his mother) shared recipes using dry seafood and ingredients found and cooked only in Koli homes. For this publication they will share a rare recipe of dried shrimps cooked with Davla, a local shrub growing in salt marshes.
All about 'Kapi' (Ratana Chuenpagdee, Suphakarn Traesupap, Suvaluck Satumanatpan, Thammasak Yeemin, Kungwan Juntarashote)	Everyone growing up in Thailand would have tasted 'kapi' in one form or another. The most common dish made from kapi, well known to all Thais, is 'nam prik' (a kapi-based dipping sauce). Kapi can be found in any Thai kitchen, in an unassuming plastic jar. Little did we know that each jar had its own story, until we visited the places and met the people who make them. The essay captures what we learned about kapi during the DFM field research in Thailand in 2020-2021.	Fabiana
STORIES. Section editors: Raktima and Mahfuz (with help from Ratana).
Amali: Life history of a Maldive fish processor and producer association leader (Dilanthi Koralagama and Nireka Weeratunge)	This life history is of Amali, a female maldive fish processor, in her early 60s from Southern Province, Sri Lanka. She has been a processor for nearly 40 years and organiser of the maldive fish processing association in her village for four years. Her story illustrates the history of the maldive fish processing industry in Kottegoda, a leading location of this industry, over the past decades. It provides information on the fish varieties utilized, the main technological changes, as well as the opportunities, constraints and vulnerabilities of producers. As the president of the fisheries society and organiser of the maldive fish processing association, she also gives insights into the governing structure and functioning of community-based producer groups.
A woman in a strange place (Wae Win Khaing)	It is about a 30-year-old woman living in her husband’s village with challenges in her life with two little children, and how her life was culturally restrained. Her husband had troubles with alcohol and gambling. She worked several jobs to provide her children and also her husband by working at her sister-in-law’s fish processing business, sometimes by selling dried fish and seasonal vegetables. Although she had been living in the village for more than ten years, she was identified as a stranger by her peers. She worked as a processor by earning more than the average of her peers and still she was described as not being empowered. The life story is based on the interview with the woman in 2020 in Maubin Township, Ayeyarwady Region, Myanmar.
Dawn to Dusk: A day in the life of a dry fish vendor (Dr.M.Sai Leela)	Women from the fishing community in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India, are the marketeers of the fish- both fresh and dry- who walk through the streets calling out the names of the fish they are ready to sell. The women step out of the house in the wee hours most days, procure the material from various sources and head for selling the same in designated localities.The women deem it a privilege in selling the fish and put in hard work in performing this traditional occupation. The article is an insight and reflection of the socio-economic aspects based on one typical day in the life of a dry fish vendor (woman),who strives from dawn to dusk to fulfill the dry fish needs of the households.	Fabiana
Local stories of the global Anthropocene: A one-day “adda” with the dry fishers of the Sundarbans Delta (Jenia Mukherjee and Raktima Ghosh)	The recurrent cyclones (Bulbul 2019, Amphan 2020 and Yaas 2021) on the Bay of Bengal have caught optimum attention of natural scientists, particularly interested to enumerate environmental implications within the larger context of the global climate crises. Amid this hue and cry to protect the Sundarbans – the globally renowned largest mangroves delta, the habitat of the Royal Bengal Tiger and most importantly, the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve the local saga of vulnerabilities and resilience remain unheard. Recently, plans of relocation of local communities have gained acreage within national and international debates and discussions. But what do the locals want; how and why? How do they perceive, experience and encounter these natural disasters? With the larger conviction to tap the local knowledge-base on reclamation of, relocation from and resilience in these ‘volatile’ island archipelago, we engaged in a one-day informal in-situ conversations (known as adda in the Bengali dialect) with the dry fisherwomen of the Frasergunj Village, Namkhana Community Development Block. The village – a famous dry fishing hub and auction center was hard hit by Cyclone Bulbul that led to damage of worth 5 crores INR in Frasergunj and Sagar Islands (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/natural-disasters/bulbul-more-dangerous-than-aila-affected-people-67805). The adda will carve out storylines addressing the local ecology-economy interface and how this complement and contradict with global discourses on the climate catastrophe.	Sai Leela
Chronicling Coastal Lives: An Interview with Vishnu Bhaliya, Boat Owner, Dried Fish Processor and Writer, Jafrabad (Tara Nair with Vishnu Bhaliya)	Apart from his being active in fishing and dried fish processing, Vishnu Bhaliya is a short story writer and novelist who has chronicled the lives of Kharwas, the dominant community of fishermen in Gujarat, in about 10 literary works. He says, “for us Kharwas, boats, seas and fish are our lives and livelihoods. Literature on the lives of fishermen is scarce in Gujarati language. I cover these lives in my stories. Some stories will take your breath away, some will blow your mind”. We would like to make a short contribution on Vishnubhai and his literary contribution. The unique experience of being a writer and a fisherman, we believe, would reveal distinct dimensions of the dried fish matters.	Nireka
VALUE CHAINS. Section editors: Derek and Wae Win.
Maldive Fish Processing in Southern Sri Lanka (S.A. Adikary, D.N. Koralagama, and N. Weerathunga)	Maldive fish is a special form of dried fish utilized as a flavour-enhancing condiment in Sri Lankan curries and sambol. However, the processing technique differs from normal salted and sun dried fish processing, in that it includes smoking as well. Maldive fish processing is popular on the south coast of Sri Lanka, especially as a cottage level industry. Yet it is consumed as a product in the entire island. Using gendered value chain and social wellbeing approaches, this chapter analyses Maldive fish processing techniques, gender relations, and wellbeing of processors, based on qualitative data collected through thirty in-depth interviews. Field work was conducted in two main processing sites, Kudawella (Hambantota district) and Kottegoda (Matara district) in southern Sri Lanka. Changes in processing methods used in the past and present, the extent of women’s and men’s engagement, trading, value addition, and scale of operations are discussed, with special focus on how these practices contribute to the wellbeing of processors.
Fish fermentation in the floodplain - a photo essay (Mostafa A R Hossain, Ben Belton and Shakuntala H Thilsted)	Fermenting fish is a familiar strategy of food preservation in Bangladesh. In the country, although a number of fermented fish products are available, the most popular one is Chapa or Shidol. The delicious Chapa has long been contributing a regular menu in the diets, particularly in the north-central, north-eastern and southern hilly regions. It is a delicacy and a common protein source in the diet of poor and middle-class people. Thousands of men, women, and children are involved in the fish fermentation sectors – supplying the raw fish, processing – drying and fermenting, and trading. This photo essay aims to contribute to our appreciation on the socially embedded practices and hence broadens our understanding of the fish fermentation in the floodplains of Bangladesh.
Organization and functioning of dried fish value chains: Examples from coastal and inland fishing communities in Sri Lanka (Madu Galappaththi, Chathurika Hiroshini Wedige, R. Ishan Indunil, Lakshitha Fernando, Sachindu Weththasinghe, Ishan Weththasinghe, Sachini Bandara Menike, and Thusharini Renganathan)	Dried fish value chains comprise an important sub-sector of small-scale fisheries that support the livelihoods, cultural traditions, and local economies, particularly in the Global South. However, the organization and scale of operation of dried fish value chains have been rarely documented and poorly understood. Better understanding the workings of these value chains is crucial to identify the opportunities to foster the wellbeing of fishing communities. The goal of this essay is to explore the organization and functioning of two distinct dried fish value chains in Kalutara and Kantale, Sri Lanka. The essay will examine these two value chains with special attention to the key value chain activities and nodes, resources involved, scales of operation, gendered participation, labour arrangements, and how the value chains activities sustain dried fish dependent livelihoods.
Shopping for dried fish: A photo essay portraying the varieties of dried fish products in Thailand (Kongpop Rungruengrayup, Piyanuch Rungrattanapongporn, Suphakarn Traesupap, Suvaluck Satumanatpan, Thammasak Yeemin, Kungwan Juntarashote,and Ratana Chuenpagdee)	Fish is an unassuming food for the Thais. Fish, whether fresh, cooked, dried or in other preserved forms, are easy to find in local, open-aired markets, supermarkets, and convenient stores. The varieties of fish products, especially dried fish, are impressive, and overwhelmed to document. Dried squids and dried anchovies, for instance, are made into numerous textures and flavours, with the latter being promoted as healthy food, especially when mixed with sesame seed, herb and spices. Through this photo essay, we present a range of dried fish products commonly found in markets in Thailand, not only as a glimpse into its diverse culinary dried fish scene, but also as an illustration of the challenges in dried fish research.
India’s fish and dried fish trade: An Overview (Jeena)	This paper seeks to examine India’s fish and dried fish trade and the changes that have taken place over the years. The data published by Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) have been used to analyze the trends and changes in the composition of the export of marine products from India. In contrast, the UN trade statistics have been used to carry out a more detailed analysis of the changes in the volume and value of trade and identify the major trading partners for the export and import of fish and dried fish products from and to India. The UN Trade statistics Harmonized System (HS) classifications for fish, dried fish, and related items since 1995-96 available at https://comtrade.un.org/data have been used for this purpose.
Dried Fish Consumption in Myanmar (Sithu Lin, Ben Belton, Wae Win Khaing)	Dried fish products have been a staple food in Myanmar Culture and are important for poor and vulnerable people. Regardless of several challenges including poor working conditions and poor food safety, and a large number of women involvements in the dried fish processing and trading, the diverse and complex economy of dried fish production and distribution in Southeast Asia is often overlooked in the research and policy arena. Myanmar Dried Fish Consumption Survey (MDFCS) is conducted between 2019 and 2020 to understand different patterns of dried fish consumption in the country as part of the Dried Fish Matters Project Phase I. It is a quantitative survey that captures the type and amount of dried fish and fish products consumed by a family, source of fish consumed, location of purchase, and their consumption behaviors based on their locations. The fresh and processed fish consumption is highly correlated to the locations of the respondents, whereas Shan (North) has the lowest consumption in all categories of dried fish. The report lays out the dried fish consumption data with several types of dried and processed fish across 8 States and Regions.
Living on the Edge (DFYWA)	(Prepared by Madu based on a report by DFYWA.) In India, dried fish have been traditionally important to small-scale fishing economies, contributed to food and nutritional security of large segments of population (especially the poor), and supported a wide range of livelihoods. Since the beginning of the 1990s, as Indian fisheries sector underwent a radical transformation, the dried fish processing sector was subject to significant upheavals. While the early stages of modernisation of Indian fisheries had enhanced the women’s access to fish, its latter stages were characterised by the dried fish value chains having to cope with reduced availability and access to fish; competition from other, more lucrative, value chains and markets; and overall decline in the drying operations. Women, who constituted the majority of actors in dried fish production and trade, faced increasing challenges to their livelihoods that required, on the one hand, having to make a number of adaptations to their fish processing and trade practices and, on the other, attempting to reduce their dependence on fish drying and switch to other occupations.
CO-LEARNING. Section editors: Eric and Aklima.
Dried fish stories: Reflections on visualizing social economies of dried fish in the time of COVID (Nireka Weeratunge, Eric Thrift)	Documentation of research findings with images and videos was an intended output of Dried Fish Matters at the scoping stage. However, COVID lockdowns and travel restrictions severely hampered the access of research teams to fieldwork sites. This short essay reflects on the collaborative process of generating stories on dried fish across six country/regional teams, by creatively combining limited material from the field with internet and social media resources. In addition to documentation, this process enabled capturing and conveying of dimensions that are not usually revealed through conventional research methods and analysis, especially sensory experiences, and cultural and symbolic aspects. The essay also discusses the technical challenges of producing a video by a predominantly social science team.
Researching the researchers: communication and communication effectiveness in an international project (Alexia Pigeault & Fabiana Li)	Have you ever wondered how communication happens in a research team, and how it happens when researchers have to collaborate internationally with other peers? This essay focuses on communication in the international project "Dried Fish Matters” (DFM) and offers lessons on effective communication in the context of interdisciplinary research and development projects. For this study, we looked at internal and external communication in DFM and examined the possible factors influencing communication. Based on a survey, interviews, and observation during meetings, our findings show that open-mindedness, frequent communications, and transparency are all key influencing factors that can be seen as requirements for effective communications. There are also other factors that shape communication, such as having the same definition of communication; social relationships between colleagues; the type of hierarchy in the project and in research teams; cultural differences; interdisciplinarity; personality traits; the number of languages spoken; new technologies; management issues; Global South challenges; the outcomes of the dissemination plan; and people’s thoughts on a project. An important lesson from the study is that self-analysis and introspection can help a team of researchers to work toward better communication and project outputs.
Online marketing and e-commerce of dried fish in Thailand (Nova Almine and Ratana Chuenpagdee)	(Revised topic) Study of e-commerce. There are several Facebook groups selling dried fish in Thailand. Many of the groups have up to 217,000 group members that are offering both wholesaling and retailing of dried fish products). Some sellers source their products directly from harvesters and processors located in different provinces. The majority of the Facebook groups were created from the beginning of the COVID times in 2020 until 2021, and new groups continue to appear. Some groups are for wholesale merchants only, while many allow every member to post and sell their products on the Facebook group. Some vendors offer to resell their products to group members. Another popular way of selling online on Facebook is called “Live selling”, where the vendor uses video setup (live streaming) to show and sell the products to their live viewers. This is also called conversational commerce or “C commerce”. It enables direct communication to potential buyers. It is effective because the viewer can buy the product by commenting on the code, they are interested in buying, then it will be reserved for that person.	Nireka
The Taste and Smell of dried fish (Eric, Gayathri, Madu, Mostafa, Nikita, Tara)	This is a brief commentary on the "taste and smell" discussion we held over Zoom and included in the video presented at the MARE Conference.
Computer-assisted research and the construction of a "dried fish literature" (Eric Thrift with Derek Johnson, Ben Belton, and Jonah Olsen)	Three years ago, we set out on what appeared, at the time, to be a fairly straightforward task: writing a survey of the published literature on dried fish. As we struggled to make sense of the thousands of references to dried, fermented, salted, and smoked fish returned by Google Scholar’s opaque algorithms, we found that technology had come to play a governing role in our unexpectedly formidable project. Instead of simply reading and summarizing an established body of scholarship, we were actively working to define a “dried fish literature” through the intermediary of Google Scholar, Zotero, and additional tools of our own design. In this essay, I reflect on how communicative tools and technologies shaped our reading of this literature, structuring our ways of seeing and interacting with “dried fish” as a category of knowledge.
CONCEPTS AND IDEAS. Section editors: Ratana and Madu.
Maimul: The story of marginality (Yeashir Arafath and Mirza Taslima Sultana)	Maimul is the term widely used to denotes the North-eastern haor centric families of Bangladesh, who are involved in fishing, fish farming, fish trading, and fish drying. During the scoping field visit on dried fish at Sylhet and Sunamganj, we came across the term. The research participants of the dried fish market told us that though the Maimuls are Muslim, they are considered as a lower caste in the society; hence no one generally wants to have a marital relationship with these families. Socially the term Maimul has a derogatory connotation. Over the past two decades, people's perceptions of the Maimul suffix have been transforming slowly due to the economic change of the people involved in dried fish production and trading. This paper aims to unpack the tensions around the identity of Maimul at Sylhet, as well as to grasp the transformation of the identity which is intertwined with the local politics.
Examining value from a socio-cultural perspective (Md. Mahfuzar Rahman)	This essay examines value from a socio-cultural perspective, deriving insights from existing value literature in anthropology, social science, development studies, and critical literature on global value chains. Highlighting the social connection of value and value heterogeneity, it problematizes the market economy's narrow, individualistic and disembedded value perspective. The money-centric valuation system builds on neo-classical economic principles, pays attention only to the capitalist economic relations and their economic value and is insensitive to non-economic relations and value. The existing valuation system built on this narrow understanding is partial and misleading; it failed to capture the real value of a thing. This essay argues for a critical value perspective that is inclusive, sensitive to value heterogeneity, attentive to all types of economic and social relations that produce value, and critical to the impact of (dis)recognition of value on human wellbeing.
Navigating Weights and Measurement in the dried fish value chain (Amalendu Jyotishi, Prashanth R, Nikita Gopal, Ramachandra Bhatta, Priya Gupta, Holly M. Hapke, Prasanna S)	The Karnataka and Kerala team while mapping the dried fish markets came across species sold using different weights and measurements. Through further observations we found there are species sold in numbers as a unit, others in kilogram, some as heaps, and yet others in seru a container of local measurement. We probed dried fish value chains further to understand what measurements are followed in the procurement process of these species. This led us to multiple and varied measurements used at different points along the value chain for different species. To add to the complexities, the weight of the fish (in terms of mass and volume) goes through a change as the wet fish loses weight in the drying process and the level of moisture content decreases. The amount of salting would also change the weights. This led to the question, how do the women-small-scale dried fish processors and traders navigate varied weights and measurements in their procurement of supply, processing, and sale of products to consumers? How does experience and the intuitive cognitive logic work for these women who are barely literate, to navigate the process? Is there a trade secret from which they tend to gain, or they lose out or discount their own (non-market and mostly labor) contribution in the process? Why isn’t a uniform method of measurement followed across species of fish and in dried fish value chains? In this short narrative, we attempt to explain the process of measurement in different nodes of the dried fish value chain. While we group some species across different types of measurement in the value chain, we also follow a few species, in an attempt to unearth the reasons behind following such varied measurement practices. To address a larger question, standardization of measurement is one of the prime attributes of capitalist economy and its expansion. In that context, we can raise questions about how multiple systems of transactions co-exist and how does these inform the economic system overall, which is deeply embedded in social, cultural, and path-dependent practices.
SES-oriented dried fish value chain and social-ecological wellbeing of upper segment value chain actors (Sisir Kanta Pradhan, Prateep Kumar Nayak, Derek Armitage)	Dried fish accounts for 12% of the total fish consumption globally increases up to 36% in low-income countries. Rich in calcium and essential micronutrients, dried fish contribution to food and nutrition security of the poor is considered significant. Its primary production and trade are important sources of livelihoods and employment for millions of producers, about half of which are women. Despite its importance, work on dried fish value chain (DFVC) continues to focus on financial value creation and linear interactions among market actors that impede the recognition of human rights, justice, food security and power across the entire value chain. Such a neoclassical perspective of DFVC undermines the complex human-nature interactions that is contingent upon specific histories, people, place, and practices. This has strong implications for the poor who are positioned at the extractive end of value chain and who continue to remain vulnerable to the changing governance approaches as well as dwindling fish stocks. Scholars working within the realm of sociology, anthropology and interdisciplinary sciences such as social-ecological systems advocate for inclusion of non-linear and multiple feedbacks within the DFVC, in place of the current narrow connotations of value and the process of value realization. Drawing upon dried fish value chain and SES literature, the chapter offers an outline of a SES-oriented value chain (SESVC) by identifying the key attributes that have the potential to improve social-ecological wellbeing of upper end value chain actors in dried fish value chain.