WG1 meeting 2021-06-09

Minutes: DFM Working Group 1 meeting, 2021-06-09

Agenda

1. Project updates
2. MARE planning: strengthening alignment between parts of DFM roundtables and plan final push to conference
3. Post-meeting MARE conference thematic sub-group discussion (Roundtable 2)

Updates

DEREK: There are no significant changes since last check-in, though momentum within the project is growing. We have increasing understanding of dried fish value chains, as well as an increasing density of outputs

But there are also ongoing challenges with COVID-19, which have slowed or stalled the research.

An indication of momentum is the significant number of publications from the project (see figure 1). Seven reports are already published; several student publications are in process. The Global Literature Review is taking longer than hoped but is also approaching completion. Other reports are also very close to being released.

Figure 1: Published and upcoming reports by DFM Research Teams, as of 2021-06-09.

Note the public documents available at driedfishmatters.org/pub/publications.html. This resource allows us to begin comparing findings across the project. For example, Oscar’s document summarizing policy in Sri Lanka is very useful in making comparisons across the project. Drafts are available on the wiki.

The scoping research progress is uneven (figure 2), largely as a result of COVID. For example, Jeena has been personally affected by COVID, which has stalled research activity at CESS. Nonetheless, many teams’ fieldwork has already begun or is approaching completion. Maharashtra and Kerala have not yet begun their work. West Bengal’s work will continue over the following phase of the research.

Deliverables completed and submitted by DFM Research Teams as of 2021-06-09.

RAKTIMA: Our scoping report draft is written and will be submitted by June.

AMAL: Our market mapping report is drafted, and should be submitted for review in the next 15 days. We are also involved in conducting a sample survey of 270 households across nine landing sites. The third-phase data collection will be complete in the next week, and of course the report will take time to analyze and complete.

DEREK: The bar graph presented in figure 2 does not provide an indication of the field research completed, only the deliverables completed and submitted.

A “success story” to share with SSHRC would be the resilience and creativity of our research teams, who have been able to continue their work despite the pandemic

Our plans for the remainter of 2021:

• Most research teams move towards completion of scoping research
• Scoping phase outputs
• Begin transition to phase 2. Discussions have already begun for a stacked value chain survey in Bangladesh. This will draw on the work of Sami Farook, a very competent economist who will be managing the survey as part of his work toward a PhD funded by DFM.

Upcoming events and activities that draw on scoping research include:

• MARE conference (June)
• IMBer Conference (November) – We intend to organize a panel on contributions of small and dried fish to food security in livelihoods in Asia. The call for contributions also encompasses research on East Asia, which will potentially help us to expand our network somewhat.
• Publications by research teams
• Initial work on synthesis output – We need to begin thinking seriously about syntheses that encompass the work of multiple research teams and present comparative insights. We can have a general DFM or WG1 meeting after the MARE Conference to work toward an edited volume or special issue.

MARE Conference planning

The main DFM contributions to MARE are three Roundtables, which fall under Working Group 1.

• RT1: Ideas – presentation of theoretical and conceptual contributions, with case studies
• RT2: Methods and process – note that process, encompassing quality interactions between people and organizations, is just as important as the methods; and is a valued focus of the SSHRC Partnership Grant scheme.
• RT3: Findings – more of a traditional academic panel. At the end of this panel, Ben Belton will facilitate a general discussion that reflects on all three of the panels.

We also have:

• DFM-V2V presentations on governance, policy, and development (Haque et al) and SES and value chains (Pradhan et all)
• Small fish panel: Nutrition security analysis of dried fish in Bangladesh (Farook et al)
• WorldFish, V2V, TBTI, DFM panel on intentional inter-project coalition building. Derek will contribute on behalf of DFM, describing how DFM can have a role in policy building.

Each of the roundtables will begin with an introduction by Derek.

Overview of the three Roundtable programs: https://driedfishmatters.org/wiki/MARE_conference_2021.

Question for reflection: Is the order of RT3 appropriate? Also, confirm that all presenters are ready.

Group discussion

RATANA: With RT3, I am surprised not to find a discussant in this panel, given that it is a more conventional acadmic panel. There is not an explicit thematic discussion in this panel, unlike the other two.

DEREK: This could be part of Ben’s role – to summarize contributions and present guiding reflections.

AMAL: It is highly likely that I will make the presentation instead of Gargi, who is not registered. I also support the idea of a discussant, to make the presentation more meaningful. What is the timing of the paper presentations?

DEREK: We have two hours per session. This could allow 15 minutes per presentation, 10 minutes for a summary by Ben, and 35 minutes for discussion.

PRATEEP: There is a nicely planned flow across the three panels. Is there a plan to link all three panels at the end of the third, and to advertise this in order to encourage a consistent audience across all three? Maybe allocate five minutes to speak to the flow across the three sessions.

DEREK: The goal of the overall introduction is to speak to how all three sessions act as a unit. We can perhaps advertise this outside the panels themselves. Interlinking the three through the panel descriptions might also be helpful.

RATANA: I question the title “Building out collaborations on dried fish social economies in Asia”. Only the second of the three roundtables really addresses collaboration in an explicit way.

DEREK: We can change “collaborations” to “connections”.

NIREKA: Visualization is the middle presentation of the second Roundtable, before themes and questions but after COVID and collaboration presentations. The recording will be done in advance. So as not to spoil the element of surprise we will not analyze it in advance, but will try to introduce it by commenting on the process. This was a very collaborative initiative, with much back-and-forth between contributors. Sara will give a commentary afterward. We are on track with this work. We do have a draft presentation, which we would like to put it on the wiki and share with everyone who has made contributions, so they can give feedback, suggest audio to go along with the images – ideally things that we have permission to use, as in folk songs or sounds produced by ourselves or our colleagues. We will put it on the wiki in the coming week.

RATANA: What is the time allocation for visualization?

NIREKA: 5 minutes for introduction. The recorded images/sounds will be up to 20 minutes. The talking part is short; the looking and experiencing part is longer.

RATANA: Do we want discussion after each of the presentations?

TINA: Having the discussion at the end is useful, since it draws attention to broader themes – different modes of collaborating and connecting, for example – that only become obvious by looking at the different contributions all together.

DEREK: This will also be helpful to Ben, if we can flag these themes in RT2.

TINA: RT2 has no named facilitator for the discussion. But this one in particular looks quite interesting.

DEREK: We should probably assign someone. There are other aspects of visualization in the project as well. We should think about how process aspects link to visualization, also to process and the applied outcomes of the project, as related to the politics of collective action. We want to turn our experiences into lessons for other teams and projects.

SAYEED: We are awaiting the preparatory meeting after this one, for the “Themes and questions” presentation. It is difficult to consider myself as a co-author given the absence of involvement up to now; the goals of this presentation are unclear.

DEREK: Here we want to reflect on how different outcomes of scoping research begin to come together and support one another. This may be more of an aspirational and preliminary presentation. One way to consider this is to think about groundings for empirical findings from the Bangladesh research.

TARA: The ordering of the final panel is good.

BEN: Would it be possible to get the presentations from Roundtable 3 in advance, rather than making things up on the fly?

NIREKA: For RT3, there should not be an issue getting the Sri Lanka presentation to Ben in advance. The presentations are sort of a mixed bag on paper, but they do not need to be. There could be a deliberate sequencing, for example: geographical, small scale to large scale, empirical to theoretical, etc.

DEREK: It could be good to begin with Sri Lanka and end with Amal, keeping Tara in the middle. We could keep the three gender papers together.

Also, it should be clear that everyone affiliated with the project is welcome to join. DFM will facilitate payment of conference fees if that is an issue for anyone.

ACTION

• DEREK will write up a revised title and descriptions for the Roundtables and circulate for suggestions.
• ERIC will coordinate with Sharon to update the three RT panel descriptions to show connections and flow between them.
• ERIC will advertise the panels outside the Conference itself.
• DEREK will find a facilitator for RT2.
• RT3 PRESENTERS will send drafts to BEN one week before the session.
• ERIC will remind everyone to send drafts to Ben.
• ERIC will forward background documents, e.g., Amal’s draft paper, Gayathri’s reports, to Ben.
• DEREK will reorganize RT3 presentation order.
• DEREK will communicate with non-presenters, inviting them to participate.
• DEREK will prepare message on the meeting.
• ERIC will send out a message with a link to meeting notes in the wiki.
• ERIC will remove Ben, Jonah, and Derek from “Complicating value in dried fish value chains”.
• ERIC ask Sisir and Mahfuz to add titles and descriptions for “Complicating value…”