WG1 meeting 2023-12-20

WG1 Meeting

December 20, 2023

Key points:

• Holly emphasized the importance of research questions leading to theoretical approaches. For example, key concepts derive from the feminist commodity chain and material feminist approaches intersect with empirical work across different countries.
• Tara suggested several papers instead of a single synthesis paper, considering the number of broad themes that evolved in the discussion.
• Instead of a pure theory paper, Derek prefers giving energy to the discomfort and diversity that comes up through empirical observation.
• Nireka echoes Derek and emphasizes looking at specificity. Since DFM teams are working in different geographies, we can bring that specificity into the paper and challenge them.  She highlighted first looking into the empirical evidence and then building theory on it. She proposed two conceptual approaches: political ecology and anthropological approaches to space and time (Bourdieu 1990; Low 2000).
• Derek highlighted the need to represent geographies not yet covered, especially Bangladesh, West Bengal, and Myanmar.
• Kyoko shared insights into non-economic influences on dried fish production in Cambodia, emphasizing the impact of ideology, identity, livelihood, risks, and changes in the economy on women’s roles.
• Key concepts came out of the discussions: agency, ideology, wellbeing, modus operandi, time and space, ecology, political ecology, political economy, and material feminism.
• The discussant's target for publishing the synthesis paper in a high-level geography journal: Economic Geography or Gender, Plance and Culture.
• The team decided to work more before taking it to the plenary group.
• For home assignments, DFM Central will put the theoretical reference points and operational concepts associated with those points on the top of the Google doc, and team members will play around with those points. The second part of the assignment is to elaborate on and hone the ideas that the members already have. The third task is to translate ideas into research questions.
• Derek and Mahfuz will review the research questions from previous meetings, as suggested by Holly, and how relevant they are for the discussion as it has evolved since then.
• There was a proposal to schedule the next meeting, in early February, depending on everyone’s availability.

Minutes:

Derek: Does anybody recall what specifically we intend to focus on for this meeting?

Mahfuz: The group decided on three outputs. One is the synthesis paper, the second is a stories book, and the third output is a special issue on gender in dried fish. For this meeting, we particularly focused on the synthesis paper, came up with ideas, wrote short paragraphs on them, and shared them in the meeting.

Derek: One of the things that came out of the last meeting was the idea of a kind of ladder approach to developing the synthesis paper. Synthesize our individual thoughts. Where do we have commonalities and differences?  We have a sort of general sense of the geography, and the focus of that paper could then be taken to the DFM plenary group.

Nireka: We have different perspectives; the commodity or the value chain is being emphasized differently by different countries. Some emphasis on production or processing and some on trading and consumption. However, there is a common ground there in terms of this whole value, material feminist kind of approach, wellbeing and agency.

There are also issues like historical differences, specificity, or factors that contribute to those specific changes, for example, technology, trading relations, physical location and ecological changes. We are still a bit in silos here. We have several theoretical reference points for interpretation, but we don’t have enough evidence for that.

Holly:  We need to ask what factors drive different modus operandi in particular places or times.  How women's involvement in the dried fish economy varies geographically and historically. We could think about the gender division of labour in more complex ways than it has been used. We need to ask questions about what factors drive a particular modus operandi in a particular place and time. How gender ideology shakes women's and men's engagement in dried fish works in diverse ways. How do they inform social economic change, or how are they reworked during social economic change?

Derek: What factors shape how women are involved and the degree to which their positions are relatively secure or vulnerable?

Nireka: It connects gender relations and social relations, but I also talked about ideology and approaching it through symbolic anthropology. There are a lot of things that can come under ideology. It is more complex than your usual ideology, which we always talk about.

Tara: I was thinking about how the political economy of current development shapes women's interaction with the market. At a very deeper level, you can see the patriarchal roots of that development ideology. The ideology of development as neutral is very problematic. Development can impact women in a much more significant way. How science, technology, and knowledge shaped our imagination. Knowledge about fish – good fish and bad fish.  Our understanding of agency today is different from two decades ago. Our understanding of agency is contested; if women come to the market and sell things, we think it's an agency, but that’s not the case. It is a fact that women have driven to the market, but a lot of other support systems have completely broken down. That’s why we must also look at some of the larger development debates. In my opinion, it could be a significant theme.

Gayathri: On the West Coast in Igambo, the younger women do not want to get into marketing and fish drying as well.  In this ongoing political and economic crisis in Sri Lanka, we've started noticing younger women in the markets and fresh fish markets. I was thinking of both Cambodia and Sri Lanka; where is the processing sector positioned? How is the fresh fish sector valued? Do they value the dried fish sector the same way?

Holly: Varied factors drive women's involvement in Kerala. The broader trend is younger women not going into fish drying, but there are little pockets where younger women are taking up the work.

Nikita: We are now seeing a trend in some places, at least, where younger women are taking up fish drying. we could relate it to COVID in some ways because it was during COVID that women felt the need. This is because they couldn't move far away from their homes, so they needed some alternative livelihood that would keep them closer to home and bring income to the household.  They could sustain that livelihood and could make a decent income.  They are now finding new ways to link up with the market for their products. So, we could call it agency in some ways because they're finding.  Some of them sell their produce to Institutional buyers, market to other states, and use social media. I am just thinking, how do we synthesize everything together? So many streams of thought.

Derek:  The synthesis is helped by having a clear conceptual focus. The earlier point about complicating agency could be one way to approach this. How is change taking place even during our time in this sector?  

Tara:  Trading or doing fresh fish business is highly risky, more complex, and requires highly networked. Dried fish is a less risky business. It's very feminine in that sense. It is mostly in the private, done in the private space of a house. Men control commercial activity. The large drying units are owned, operated, and controlled by men. It is women when it comes to small-scale, home-based drying activity. How women lost control when commercialization happened, and that right wish became a business opportunity. How women’s control of farming completely gets lost. When that becomes a lucrative marketable commodity.

Nireka:  Agency can't be just equated to choice, whether you're selling dried fish or getting to the market or not. As far as I understand, agency is about the ability to define and act upon your goals. From what you understand of your life, it's your goal for you: where you are and where you want to go. Women are able to exercise this agency in a much more complex way.

Gayathri:  My observations in Cambodia come across certain processing units that were a large case, especially in Batan Bong, the women’s own. They've been traditional; they are generational, run by women, and they are large-scale. I've seen similar trends in the south of Sri Lanka. It's also interesting to then do something cross-country. In a sort of comparison, there is such a lot of variation, even within Sri Lanka; that's just so many.

Derek:  If we look at the range of variation that exists and try to understand why, in parts of southern Sri Lanka, women do have greater access and why, in others, they have less access. There seem to be some specific factors with that location, which is making it a sort of male-dominated rather than the actual sort of gender relations in terms of it not being religious.

Holly:  There is so much variation, so I’m really getting a handle on the different modus operandi that can exist. What factors drive that? Feminist theory around commercialization and women and gender is this tendency of men taking things over, but I think in the fishery sector, there are exceptions to that. I observed in fresh fish at random and back in the nineties that Men in fishing communities were not. Even though marketing had expanded and there were all kinds of economic opportunities, women still were very much part of that. Larger sources of capital and sort of control the upper echelons of the market, yet There are still a lot of opportunities for women to be entrepreneurial. A particular way of modus operandi didn't work for them, yet they were operating a wholesale business in a quite different way. Building businesses and operating in a particular way, earning income that allows them to do what they want and have a kind of agency in their life. That's very capitalist-oriented and favours large-scale operations, and yet the most entrepreneurial women find ways of operating and taking advantage of opportunities that come up and operate in particular ways.

Derek: To what degree are we willing to commit to generalization, and to what degree are we going to emphasize the variability? There is a difference between South and Southeast Asia or at least parts of South Asia and South and Southeast Asia. In terms of women's ability to engage in a broader sphere of dried fish economic activities. Thailand and Cambodia have more space for women to be involved in large-scale commercial entrepreneurs. The circumstances of those countries tend to facilitate and permit women to do that. Do we want to make a gross claim like that? How would we present an idea like that in a way that also allows us to point out all the exceptions, variations, and nuances of how that rolls out?

Or do we write a multi-vocal paper? It's possible to even, you know, a political economy paper could be more about looking at the broader policies and how they impact. The issues that we are discussing are exceptionally large and complex.

Holly:  Synthesizes the variation, right? That allows us to deal with variation and see commonalities, connections, and contradictions. I always like to identify and organize work around research questions. So it might be helpful to move with this paper toward a set of overarching questions (one to three) that we're trying to address, and that would provide a kind of base structure for thinking about what the different sections would be, what the different issues.

Derek: Mahfuz and I can go back and pull the research questions from previous meetings and see how relevant they are for the discussion, as it's evolved since then.  

Holly: What's the next step? we've thrown out lots of different ideas; how do we move from this broad canvas that we've thrown things at to a more structured, organized process of thinking through some of these ideas?

Derek: Tara suggested this could be several papers. That's a bit of a destabilizing thought.

The richness of this discussion is the empirical reference points that we've all brought. So, I am a bit uncomfortable with the idea of a pure theory paper. I'd rather see the paper given energy by the discomfort of the I'm trying to reconcile these different empirical. Observations that we've had.

Nireka:  With this first attempt, we have some broad questions. I would like to ask not to be purely theoretical; I mean, the whole idea is that since we are working in different geographies, we bring that specificity into it and challenge those. So, in terms of the big picture, there is a sort of political ecology. I'm interested in ecology aspects because they always are articulated, but not as often. So, the political-economic ecology aspects, then anthropological approaches to space and time (Bourdieu 1990; Low 2000) are also important. On which everybody can come up. I prefer looking at what I see on the ground and then building my theory with it. I think we can all agree on some things. The other aspect of spatiality is that we can look at space and compare it across countries.

Derek: It made me think about where a paper like this should go again. A high-level geography journal might be the best place to start.

Holly: It could go to gender place in culture. It could go to economic geography.

Derek: So. If our next step is to have a plenary meeting. I think we need to decide. How to prepare for that meeting. And, I guess, to ask the question. Are we ready? To take it to the broader DFM group.

Holly:  I'm not sure we're quite ready for the plenary meeting.

Nireka:  we need to have a few more discussions. So, if, you know, streamline our thought.

I think we need to work a little more on refining it before taking it out.

Derek:  My only hesitation is that certain geographies in the project are not well represented now. I'm thinking. Particularly of. West Bengal in Bangladesh. Mahfuz is here, he needs to step up a bit more and represent Bangladesh. But West Bengal and Myanmar. Myanmar now has a place in the project, but is in Thailand. Way Win’s research on the Myanmar diaspora. It addresses questions of social gender relations and cultural patterns. Myanmar is missing. But so that's just something I'm going to think about and worry about.

Holly:  when you have this vastly different kind of context, it changes theorization.

Derek: Way Win’s research is really generating fascinating insights, though. Into how people navigate. That context and the incredible strategies. and still make a successful living in a context where the state gives you no recognition. Thai state is actively trying to. Suppress any kind of permanent solution to the Myanmar migrant question.

Nireka: Sri Lanka has also had a political and economic shock. Some of the other aspects that Gayathri mentions in terms of young women going into dry fish are because of that shock. We had the Covid economic shock, and we don't know what the next shock is going to be.

Derek: There's also the Rohingya. The refugee crisis in Bangladesh has a major implication.

Kyoko can represent some part of it. Some of the other geographies needs to be represented in the discussions.  In terms of moving towards, what do people think would make sense in the next meeting and working with this Google Doc? And again, the case study book. The synthesis paper outputs, and then the IFFET conference, where we're proposing to present the synthesis paper.

Holly:  We have identified several key concepts or keywords: Modus Operandi, ideology, time, space, and agency.

Nireka:  Key concepts or keywords will be effective. We can focus on some keywords and see from each of our cases. If there is common ground, then we can focus the paper on that.

Derek: Should we put it at the top of the Google Doc? A table with the key reference words and the key conceptual reference words. We can start with the ones that we just listed. Tara emphasizedized political economy / ecology and material feminism. So, that could be another keyword.

Holly: In terms of broad kinds of literature or frameworks, we have this feminist commodity chain approach. This materials feminist approach and then the kind of well-being. Maybe. Gendered wellbeing approach. Those are broad pieces of literature that we're kind of drawing on and contributing to. Then we have specific concepts like political ecology, which is where different geographies are situated. Then, we have geographic variation in society.

Derek: How about a 2- or 3-stage homework assignment? Before the next meeting, one is that, based on this discussion, Mahfuz and I will put—the theoretical reference points and then a sort of operational concepts associated with those points at the top, and then all of you play around with those in the Google Doc, and we'll try to have a kind of framework there. The second part of the homework assignment is to take the notes you've already begun to elaborate on and hone them in relation to how they match that framework. My third point was to translate themes into research questions. So maybe a section after the conceptual business. The first point is to map out the 3 or 4 broad theoretical areas that are guiding.

Holly: That's a particularly good and substantial homework assignment as it is. These are the broad kinds of questions, and then we're using approaches like the feminist commodity chain. Then, key concepts that come out of those approaches are developed in new and diverse ways based on the empirical work that's taking place in these different countries.

Kyoko: Holly's third point under theoretical implications would be interesting. - factors that drive particular modus operandi in particular places or times - exploring why it becomes a serious business in Sri Lanka and India while Cambodia is more into food security.

Ideology is interesting. For example, in Cambodia, dried fish prices are almost the same as fresh fish prices. So, making dried fish is not really economic. It is shaped by ideology and identity, as well as how they see their livelihood and risks, etc. So, it is interesting to explore the non-economic "market" of dried fish. Trading knowledge and social capital?

There are many studies in agriculture that show women engaged in production that does not make economic sense (do not pay for their labour), because those are the only things that they have (no choice, limited agency).

I think the issues of mode of operation and ideology, time, and space are important keywords. In Cambodia, when the country was closed, women dominated the black market. With the opening of the economy, women lost that domination since men had better connections with the government. Some continued even when they did not make any profit; some women moved out (moved to a space where the ideology of male domination is less - like tourism).

Holly: The third point was that we could ask questions about what factors drive different modus operandi in particular places or times. They're quite diverse ways of operation. So different modus operandi characterized women's involvement, both women and men. Women's involvement in the dried fish economy varies geographically and historically. We could think about this sort of idea, the concept of gender division of labour, in more complex ways than it has probably been used in the literature and fisheries work. Then, we have geographic and historical variation and specificity. We need to ask questions about what factors drive a particular modus operandi in a particular place and time. How does gender ideology shake women's and men's engagement in dried fish work in diverse ways, in intersections between economic and social-cultural change? So how do they inform social economic change, or how are they reworked in the course of social economic change?

Derek: What factors shape how women are involved and the degree to which their positions are relatively secure or relatively vulnerable?

Nireka: It's sort of connected to both gender relations and social relations, but I had also talked about ideology in terms of going. approaching it through symbolic anthropology. Many things can come into that ideology as the package is more complex than your usual ideology, which you always talk about, you know, patriarchal ideology.

Derek: In terms of my assignment, I will try to represent some of the other geographies that aren't. Maybe Kyoko can help with the Myanmar case as well.

Can we aim to have another meeting roughly A month from now?