WG1 Minutes 2023-03-29

WG1 (Gender & Social Economy)

Meeting Minutes

March 29, 2023

Agenda

1. Deepen the understanding that we have been collectively building through gendered commodity chain analysis

1. So far intersectionality and social wellbeing (Madu); socialist and radical feminisms (Sachs)

1. Collins’ four areas:

1. Waged work as complex social relationship

1. Subsidies from reproduction to production

1. Subsidies from nature to production

1. Global interconnections as web, not just of commodities

1. These points are about women, but also about gender and social economy

1. Going forward

1. Practicalities of interface

1. Synthesis paper

1. Research questions

1. Identify key contributions of DFM and df perspective

1. How to build on Madu’s paper

1. Seeds of subsequent work

Discussions of readings

Madu

• How women embed value
• Capitalist conditions of

Derek summary of Madu’s points

• Systematically document ways in which women’s informal work subsidizes dried fish informal economy
• Use place as methodological tool to understand how process of women’s engagement in dried fish production can be facilitated or made much more difficult

• E.g. proximity of working spaces to home
• Ideologically, recognition of whether women’s spaces of work are recognized publicly or not
• Both useful entry points for way to bring together research form DFM collectively

Nireka

• Jane Collins’ paper

• Was her supervisor
• Comes from tradition of petty commodity production, Marxist line, feminist thinking, interweaves World Systems theory part of Binghampton tradition
• Key thing is site of household as site of production; central to petty commodity production analysis
• We have to compare across countries how central the household is to dried fish production

• In SL, for example, most of this production takes place in the household; whereas in other countries more industrialized or commercialized

• Space: how spaces are connected to one another; most of vcs are in SL, whereas in other countries VC directed outside

• Stick with value chains not commodity chains because of focus on value; Collins and Dunaway are interested in how much of this value, surplus value relates to exploitation (classical Marxist approach to value)
• Commodity chain and World Systems a bit dated by now

• Self-provisioning part very interesting – how it subsidizes production; when have crisis like Covid, because household site of production, there is flexibility for household absorb crisis which is not the case if completely integrated into global market chains
• Where does agency fit into this kind of petty commodity chain analysis? We need to look at some of parallel thinking from scholars like Naila Kabeer who also comes from this whole social relations of production approach; gender as one important social relations; looks at where these relations are reproduced: family, market, state; institutional constraints on agency being generated or realized – from Kabeer’s perspective ultimate goal is wellbeing; empowerment path to wellbeing; again, agency not sufficiently addressed in this feminist commodity chain approach

Derek

• SL case: so much of the production is focused on consumption within Sri Lanka; but perhaps we have to consider more the imports; following Dunaway, how SL is influencing the global economy; it is still a globalized economy, but more from a demand point of view; while Gujarat would be much more from a production point of view
• Like what said about value chains rather than commodity; the term value is more consistent with the more holistic perspective on chains idea rather than commodity chains idea
• Like what said about wellbeing as goal, with empowerment pathway to it

Tara

• My response is about production regimes prevalent in India
• May be duality in production sector formal-informal
• In India we know that much of the capital-labour relationship oriented towards global markets has strong informal dimensions

• Intersectionality cannot ignore that a general logic of production is informality; this is how household becomes an important; important space where value is produced
• Go back to critical feminist concern with undervaluation of women’s work
• Household becomes a site of gross exploitation; a lot of invisible underpaid home-based work; how informality creates facilitative condition for reduce costs of labour; in India, different from what Nireka was talking about, where very close integration of local informal production relations with international exports
• How do we analytically use this social economic perspective with feminist perspective; feminist perspective has elements of social economic perspective in it; women as intersectional beings brings their social existence; that is how their subjectivity is produced; I think we need to look for ways to bridge the social economy and feminist perspective; looking for way to adapt each of these feminist frameworks and adapt it to our situation

Derek

• I want to get clarity on convergence you were talking about: geographic and social economy and feminist perspective  
• On latter, can you explain further?

Tara

• The attention of social economy to structural features in particular contexts that shape perception is markedly different from a neo-classical perspective
• What I see is that a social economic perspective can accommodate a feminist lens

Derek

• Connection between the two convergences: the way that you mobilize the connection between social economy and critical feminism much reflect the particular context

Taslima

• How in dried fish contexts, how gendered ideology affects wellbeing of different groups of people
• If we look at ideology how women’s subjective and agency

Derek

• Going back to Sachs, make sure that we are attentive to more radical feminist insight about radical feminism – the place of ideology in relations of power

Taslima

• Not radical feminism, but socialist feminism

Derek

• Thanks for the correction
• I struggle with how not to reduce feminist approaches to women’s rights

Nireka

• Following up on Taslima on ideology
• Go back to four different spheres to understand how agency is constrained: family, market/workplace, state
• We need to look at these in how they might be linked; state is looking for women often, e.g. in free trade zones, but women are constrained by norms from household and society; have to understand the interactions between the norms and practices across these spheres and how they change

Derek

• Didn’t mention subjectivity, that was central to what Taslima
• Norms are internalized through subjectification

Nireka

• But agency also stands for how actors challenge norms and processes of subjectification
• Capacity to resist depends on institutional constraints and possibilities

Taslima

• These processes and agencies will vary across contexts

Derek

• DFM provides that comparative possibility

Tara

• Another chapter in Dunaway book on Philippine Island (ch. 9); short but effective that weaves together debates about gendered labour in the fisheries case
• Overarching strategy of capital is to externalize production
• Have to look at conditions and terms of work, even if women are working in factories; they are not getting the conditions of a dignified worker
• Employing migrant women increases capacity to extract labour
• Patriarchies work in multiple ways; have specificity in universality that we are talking about

Jenia

• Political ecology is a framework that is linked; feminist and embodied political ecology
• Space and place takes place from smallest unit of body to distant spaces

• Lot of discussions about mode of production, feminism, agency
• In a big complex project like this may be scope to provide primary first hand empirical insights that puts forward question of agency; how stories allow us to critically interrogate agency; agency is relative thing; has subjective element
• Asian mega delta project reports: shared experience of working with women; how project team tried to come up with design
• What would be the strategy from DFM for effective planning/design principles
• If there is a possibility, can think of accommodating this first hand experience for translating this knowledge action in a place-based way

Derek

• Very important to integrate consideration of body so important
• What kinds of empowerment interventions exist
• E.g. gender transformative approach of WorldFish (Cynthia McDougall and Pip Cohen)

• How the body is understood is often central to systems of oppression of women

Raktima

• how reproductive work subsidizes production
• in fieldwork talking to dried fish camp owner – she has saved money from son’s work in marine fishing; if sons not there, she’d have to hire labour

• one of sons asking for money as salary; how family relations shading into labour/contractual relationships
• these relationships producing dried fish production space
• not only relations among human beings but also sensory impressions; entire sensory aspect should merit attention
• leads us to various thing: mood, ways of being, aspirations, values, relationships
• through sensory attachments are interacting with many things

• embodying hegemonic regimes; most of women are self-help group workers; these women attending meetings of self-help groups; whatever getting as loan have to keep it for family; entire family’s income; has to save it for husband; during tough time need those funds
• on one hand are aspects of mobility where man would tell woman that should reach home early; husband says should reach home early
• many layers of these relationships

Derek

• so helpful to ground theory in these empirical contexts
• your examples show us how us how the sensory is important in terms of cultural context – what is appropriate for bodies to look like, smell like

Raktima

• I have also tried to understand body as space

• Adulthood, womanhood, motherhood, widowhood

Derek

• The boundaries of the body as space are porous
• The space of the body is integrated with the environment

Prateep

• Raktima, your comments about how family relations become commodified are really insightful
• The first idea of Collins paper that wage labour is much more than the wage  
• Wage becomes more than wage through social reproduction process

• Wage become more than money or cash
• Links to Nireka’s points about social wellbeing; wage can be more than just material but also subjective and relation
• How then can we integrate the value propositions in how we understand wage?
• Sisir’s point: what is the value of value chain; value in value chain is more oriented to wellbeing in all dimensions; in the paper he published a couple of months back; need for more decentralized approach to value chain across these decentralized layers of value chain itself; expanding nodes in vc analysis allows different spaces in which we can apply this expanded understanding of wage
• It relates to Vizag discussion; space, place, and agency/spirit – non physical aspect

• Live fish/dead fish discussion from focus group: men deal with live, women with dead; what value proposition emerges from this relationship; alerts you do finer details of social reproduction process; new addition to long-term discussion at Chilika Lake about changing volumes of catch and sizes of fish

Derek

• Metaphorically: interesting research question: does the live-dead fish distinction inform the social reproduction of gender difference?
• Methodological innovation: expand ideas of nodes: they offer comparative possibilities; how does the reproduction/production distinction vary across nodes; value chain perspective provides way of understanding how relations of power play out differently at different nodes

• We could bring this out in the second phase outputs

Prateep

• This idea of focusing on the nodes is about how you decentralize thinking about the value chain
• When you think about space and place spatializes gender; are we doing enough to unravel invisible spaces and places in different contexts/nodes; a lot of discussion in these spaces and places is hidden

Derek

• Breaking the analysis down by nodes provides greater clarity that we would otherwise miss
• Now try to shift from theory to practical relevance of these ideas
• How do we sort through these ideas to mobilize them for our work to generate innovate ideas for our work

• How can present DFM’s findings to move knowledge production forward and practice
• Empirically, the dried fish sector can move forward the feminist commodity chain analysis
• Are there theoretical and methodological innovations from this project as well, particularly in terms of social economy
• E.g., Kyoko’s discussion of space from last meeting; Raktima’s connection between body and political ecology
• How to layer together the empirical, theoretical, and methodological insights from the project that would be the basis for the synthesis paper followed by an edited volume

• Holly’s valuable observation about orienting research questions; can think about them in relation to these empirical, theoretical, and methodological layers

Tara

• Make call for extended abstracts to this group as an opportunity to clarify the contribution
• That’s a good way to find out where we are emerging or where we are distinct

Prateep

• Make sure that the political and ecological are involved in the social economy approach – how do we make a more interdisciplinary approach?
• Make it a broader sphere

Derek

• If we have a call for abstracts, that could potentially bring that diversity in

Nireka

• Rather than abstracts perhaps more in process documents

• To see within these approaches, where do our findings fit? A more grounded theory approach.
• How data might fit different theories

Derek

• There are different sources of writing, research teams, students, working group leads – most should be empirical, bottom-up driven, but others should feel free to contribute more theoretical or methodologically-oriented reflections

• Write them in ways that make sense in relation to your particular position in the project
• Could put out a call; create a template? What is the question, what theory looking at, what examples do we have?
• Amal’s suggestion to be stimulated by things that trouble you

Prateep

• Maximize benefits of intellectual process like this; be flexible in how putting it together; use this group as a sounding board to bring out and improve the ideas
• Next step shouldn’t be too abstract but too exploratory

Derek

• Assignment for next meeting could be simply to go through the notes and brainstorm; continue the process one more time; out of next meeting we might get precise instructions for people

• Give everyone a chance to raise and reflect on a troublesome question?
• Kevin says that could be consistencies across bothersome questions that people raise

Amal

• We could read recent paper on gender-based violence in fisheries in Fish and Fisheries