WG1 Minutes 2022-12-22

WG1: Gender and Social Economy

Meeting Notes

December 22, 2022

D.J.: Goals of the project-

• Next possible focus of the project.
• Focus on the gendered involvement in the dried fish social economies.

• In the first stage, we can think of publishing our findings in MAYA (?), later, we can publish in more formal peer review journals.

Today’s meeting, we want to get your opinion on two topics-

First, Content – How do we organize the scoping study findings?

Second,  

E-book launching: A tentative possible date is February 20, 2023, on World Social Justice Day.  

Keywords or themes proposed by the participants-

Mahmudul Sumon: Family labour, Social justice.

Madu: Marginalization of women across the board.

Jessie: Precarity, work conditions, Environmental risks.

Amlendu: Vulnerability.

Holly H.: Intersectionality, Economic aspects of family labour, marginalization.

Kyoko: Women are always present marginalized, and dried fish is itself marginalized. Economically women in dried fish (DF) could be marginalized, but there are other aspects. Economically, they may not be good, but socially, and culturally dried fish gives much value to women. It would be good if you could balance economic negativity and other aspects while examining gender in DF. I mean both the negative and positive sides of it. Some specific examples are food, culture, and pride in their skills. Women could be marginalized economically, but they have certain feelings toward dried fish. I am more interested in their pride, skills, and knowledge pass to others.  

D.J.: A lot of invisible, marginalized women's labour fit quite problematic in the dried fish sector. At the same time, in countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, we know that dried fish are culturally highly valued. How do we bring these together? What is the positive women's involvement in dried fish we can bring out?

Nireka: It would be great to have all the presentations in one place. Find out what the unique things presented in each presentation. She emphasizes integrating gender into the social economy.  

Holly H.: Gender can be a subject with an empirical aspect and an approach. Theorizing gender and thinking about what is our theory about gender will be really important, especially if there is going to be a gender working phase two to have some consistency across the project. I think that will be really an important thing to think about.  

To add Kyoko’s point, the robust theory of gender just not just victimized; women are marginalized but also entrepreneurial. I am sure we can find some examples of entrepreneurial spirit. Of course, patriarchy creates larger contextual circumstances which put a lot of pressure on women. Thinking deeply about theory and what are our theorization of gender will be helpful.

Eric T.: Do we have the possibility to discuss solidarities among women through work or family relations? As in ways of exercising, power through ‘hidden transcripts’, women’s knowledge etc.  

Madu G.: What is presented is the framework that I developed in linking wellbeing and intersectionality in the context of dried fish; in particular, it was more of a conceptual contribution. For the paper, in particular, I am thinking maybe what we could do..this is perhaps the first time looking at the empirical studies to trying draw some connection and also recognize the status of the project. As a starting point for the first paper, we can be studied up as a broad exploratory paper where we pick up some common themes around marginalization, precarity and things like that, highlighting some unique themes. The direction of the paper could be to identify some major gaps that need to be researched on, this could be the contribution of the first paper and then a series of paper can follow to answer the gaps.  

D.J.: I think you are making a suggestion both about the process and the content, may be starting with the content. You suggest moving from the first phase to the project's second phase. We could use what you developed as a starting point, and link some of the key emerging themes that need additional theorization, like precarity or the household labour side. We perhaps begin to think about the MAYA context and then deepen fully polished peer review.  

One thing that we do need to think about is the practicality of who is going to be interested in involvement lead on this.  

Tara N.: Contextual diversity is highly valuable, different space, I am not talking about physical spaces but different moral universes. Also, talking about different ways genders relate. Talking about the distinction between physical and conceptual spaces. Lost the connection.

D.J.: We have a number of useful contributions to discuss. Are there other thoughts about key areas or theories we need to engage with. Or at a point, we can set up a smaller working group that can begin to choose through these things.  

Mahmudul Sumon: One of the key themes is the community, how communities are engaged with fish production, and how the generational thing works. The field I visited was a community with a long tradition of fish production; household labour was involved in production activities. As an anthropologist, I always think about ethnography, ethnography about community and how it fits into this broad project.  

In terms of keywords, why don’t we have culture as a key words, because culture is the key force in the production system? We are thinking of doing some ethnographic work on this community, with a deep focus and a longer period. Try to see whether we can also integrate this into our project in the publication.

Taslima Sultana: I am thinking of the synthesizing paper,  wellbeing could be an interesting area which we can theorize and problematize. Marginalization and economic things are there, also the community. Also, we can see wellbeing at the individual level, and at the agency. If we problematize wellbeing that could be a great thing. For the special issue, every country and students can contribute.  

D.J. So, you are arguing problematizing wellbeing to bring agency clearly into the agency. Kyoko already mentioned that wellbeing is critical and draws attention to positive aspects of experiences, so not overlooked.

Aklima: we need to explore more about the agency of women engaged in dried fish value chains, not only the women labour but also the women who are contributing to the chains as a household team members. Also, the patriarchal causes they are facing.  

Siddiqur R.: Theorizing gender in-depth way, fluidity nature of gender, I would rather address the issues of fluidity in subjectivities, in the lens of power and history. Mahmud proposal of ethnography might be an answer. As Taslima was saying, mixing quantitative and qualitative data. Sami is doing the quantitative part, and there is an opportunity to complement the qualitative data. Also, capture how women negotiate with patriarchy in the community. Women are not always victims; they also have some potential for agency in the innovative way they negotiate. Economically, they may not be on the top, but there are other ways they are involved in dried fish. At least, the aspiration, dream capital, I would say. They may not have the economic capital but have a dream of being an entrepreneur or managers. How about young women dreaming  of becoming processing yard owners or Arotder. Not to see women as victims of patriarchy, they have the agency of creative negotiation.  

D.J.: Picking up on what Mahmud and Siddiqur were saying about the value of ethnographic depth, we can examine what Taslima said. However, at the informal level, women exercise agency but still face restrictions on what they can do. Still, they don’t have the status the male partner would have. So exploring these things has a real value in the particular methodological approach.  

Deo: It has been observed there is a growing kind of dried fish trade from the great lake regions of Africa; around the lake, there is a development of trade mainly led by women exporting dried fish from these regions to North America and other parts of the world. When we talk about actors, we talk about boat owners, traders, and fish processors, but not so much about fish shippers. This is a new category, mainly women shipping fish from these regions to other parts of the world. These are the people doing business in a certain way in the modern market. My focus will be women who are the key actors in the value chains. Also, I will look into the networks, how they operate, following structure, conduct and performance approach combined with ecology, and power structure.  

D.J.: the observation we need to bring out these positive stories of women’s agency as well, it is a counterpoint of stories of marginalization.  

Now, we need to figure out how to take this forward.  

Homework assignment: Two possibilities; one would be reviewing Madu’s paper and connecting it to the findings and looking at any further addition or extension needed. Based on today’s discussion, what needs to be added to studying gender in the dried fish sector. Second, read the book suggested by Holly.

Nireka: In terms of practicality, the smaller group might be effective, but the present group is not too large.  

I want to return to the substance when we talk about wellbeing; we need to see it as a process, not only the output. She further asked to focus on gender and space.  

D.J.: If there is an enthusiasm working in the present group size, then we will have another meeting of this group in a month to move forward.  

Mostafa: There are too many aspects of gender in dried fish. Therefore, we need a sub-group to review different aspect of gender within the gender group.

Amal: Discussion in this group size is very effective and important. We can learn new things from each other. We can start with developing a concept note and then work in a smaller group.  

Mahmud: we already discussed key themes. We can write concept notes collectively.

D.J.: we can start from the notes of this meeting and Kochi conference notes. We can start writing on Wiki, and everyone can add their ideas there.  

Siddiqur: Commonalities and differences both need to be addressed.

D.J.: This is really a productive meeting. The next meeting is possibly in late January. Because of the time difference we need to have the meeting at the same time.

Book suggested by Holly:

Carolyn Sachs 1996 Gendered fields: rural women, agriculture and environment. Westview Press. (Chapters 1, 2 & 7).