GAF8 2022-11-21

DFM Brainstorming meeting summary

Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Conference -- IMA House, Ernakulam, November 21, 2022

Participants, DFM brainstorming meeting at GAF8

Attendees:

• Ramachandra Bhatta
• Raktima Ghosh
• Holly Hapke
• Mostafa Hossain
• Derek Johnson
• Amalendu Jyothishi
• Wae Win Khaing
• Dilanthi Koralagamage
• Kyoko Kusakabe
• Gayathri Lokuge
• Jenia Mukherjee
• Tara Nair
• Prasanna Surathkal
• Mirza Taslima Sultana
• Sukmoly Uon

Meeting purpose

The three DFM panels at the GAF8 conference were the first opportunity for DFM to hold an in-person meeting since March 2020 when DFM co-organized a public presentation of Gayathri Lokuge’s scoping research in Phnom Penh. We took advantage of the GAF8 DFM panels to convene a meeting with the presenters who were there in person. All were able to join except Nikita Gopal who, as conference convenor, was busy with conference duties.

Derek proposed an open-ended discussion with the following agenda:

1. Quick progress updates from representatives from each of the DFM Research Teams in attendance
2. How to build on the momentum of the GAF8 panel
3. How to build momentum for the final push in the remaining 3+ years of the project particularly given the challenges of moving forward after the departure of Eric as Project Manager.

Professor Bhatta raised the additional important point of how to work towards assembling findings across research teams to begin to address the social economy mapping objective of the project. This led to a fourth agenda item

4. Building capacity to build across research teams

Agenda item 1: Research Team progress reports

• Derek neglected to ask for a volunteer to take notes, so we do not have a detailed record of the updates from each Research Team
• As we went around the room, however, it was remarkable how much work has been achieved and how much is ongoing
• While completion of the final reports from DFM’s has been slow, most teams are now very close to providing first drafts of their scoping reports. Telangana is the leader here, having submitted their final scoping report earlier this year. It is currently under review and revision.
• Derek reported that the first major second phase activity, the stacked value chain survey for Bangledesh led by Sami Farook in collaboration with CNRS Bangladesh is in scoping and pre-testing.
• Second phase research undertaken by students is underway in Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Cambodia.

Agenda items 2 and 3: building on GAF8 panels and invigorating the DFM team’s collaborative work for the final phase of the project

• Discussion pointed to the clear connection between building on the momentum from GAF8 and the bigger goal of developing strategies to collaborate productively for the remainder of the DFM project, so summary of the two agenda points is combined
• Follow up from the GAF8 panels is important to re-energize DFM after the lull in activity that has taken place this year. Derek ascribes this lull in activity to two factors:

1. Derek’s concern about Zoom fatigue within the DFM group so a reduction in meetings
2. The transition in DFM Project Manager from a full-time dedicated position with Eric to new more contingent arrangements.

• Ideas for energizing the DFM team for the remainder of the project:
  • The GAF8 follow-up work provides a clear and specific set of output targets to focus on; these can be part of the bigger package of outputs that can help to focus the DFM team’s energies for the remainder of the project. (more on this point below)
  • Work on the post-GAF8 outputs should be the basis for restarting meetings of DFM’s WG1. Other WGs and DFM student group should be reinvigorated.
  • Finish the e-book and then identify other promising collective outputs that can motivate work together over the remaining project period.
    • One idea is coordination among members of the Bangladesh, West Bengal, and Sri Lanka teams to look at archival materials on dried fish.
    • MARE 2025 as possible place to present project synthesis findings.  

• Return to regular meetings. Once every two months at minimum. The post-GAF meetings can start the new meeting schedule.
• Regular physical meetings for remainder of project – annual project meetings if possible or country level meetings. Derek to assess what is budgetarily possible.
• Hire a part-time communications consultant to improve DFM’s internal and external communications. Talk with Gayathri, Holly, and University of Manitoba Comms department for ideas about the focus of such a position.

Agenda item 4: planning for comparative social economy mapping within Indian and across project

• There was consensus that this needs to be a priority for last stage of project, but it will need to be the subject of future meetings, possibly through WG1.
• It would make sense that this task would be the focus of a major project-level in-person meeting.

Immediate next steps

• Follow-up to GAF8 meeting:
  • DFM to organize meeting at 9:00 am CST on December 15 to refine plan and content
  • Each paper presenter(s) to provide set of key words to [[1]] by December 1 as basis for discussion at the meeting.
  • Key words will be shared with all DFM team members in advance of meeting
  • Other DFM participants are welcome to submit their sets of key words and/or join the meeting
  • DFM Central to compile presentation slides and share through Zotero
  • Possible focus outputs:
    • Venu from ICSF asked DFM to write 2000-word illustrated synthesis paper for Yemaya – this could be first target output
    • Collaborative peer-reviewed paper on gender in social economy of gender in dried fish value chains in South and Southeast Asia
    • Edited volume, special issue, e-book, and/or visual output with stories that builds on panels

Upcoming events:

December 8, 9:00 am CST: Gujarat team scoping findings presentation (recording on YouTube channel)

December 15, 9:00 am CST: GAF8 conference follow up discussion on gender and social economy of dried fish outputs

TBA (April-May 2023): presentation by Sami Farook on SVC and his research plans (he is yet to be invited)