Stage two planning

This document lists some planning suggestions the starting point of which was the outcome of discussions at the Plenary meeting of 2022-01-25. We have set up an associated discussion Page where we are trying to collect feedback on (1) routine communications strategies, and (2) planned outputs for the remainder of the project. In particular, we are looking for ideas and preferences for brown bag meetings, webinars, or in-person meetings; suggestions for pilot projects; ideas about how to involve students in the second half of the project; and thoughts about potential collaborative writing outputs, such as the proposed edited volume or collaborative monograph. Please press the "Comment" button or one of the "reply" links to join the discussion.

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Routine communications

We see the need for more frequent, informally structured communications across the project, to provide opportunities for sharing questions, methods, and findings as well as for building relationships within the partnership.

Virtual meetings (synchronous)

• Regular "brown bag" meetings scheduled every two or three weeks (45 to 60 minutes), with an established topic/question/document for discussion, possibly hosted by one of the research teams
• Periodic meetings initiated by people with questions or results to share/discuss
• Regular drop-in sessions

Virtual discussions (asynchronous)

• Slack
• WhatsApp
• DFM course on TBTI Moodle site
• DFM wiki discussion platform

In-person meetings

• In-country team meetings
• Meetings involving two or three research teams, possibly initiated by DFM Central
• WSSFC
• Another conference

Planned outputs

We have observed, and heard in several meetings, that concrete outputs are particularly effective at focusing collaborative effort. We have seen the success of collective work on the MARE Conference, IMBeR Symposium, Visualizing Social Economies video, and E-book. The following list encompasses various project outputs that remain to be completed through the Scoping research, or that have been proposed for the remaining 3 years of the project.

• Thematic reports planned as part of the Scoping research. Currently there are 77 outstanding reports listed in our TOR: 52 planned, 17 in progress, and 8 completed but with DFM Central; these are in addition to the 13 reports already published. See the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) page on reports for a full list of outstanding reports and their status. Ideally we will publicize these reports through the DFM blog, public webinars, and social media.
• WSSFC panel. Our proposal lists three mini-workshops with the following guiding questions: what are DFM’s key comparative findings about dried fish social economies in Asia and about the mapping of "knowledge" as an emergent practice? What do we learn about the nutrition that dried fish affords from a social economy perspective? And how can we best mobilize research on dried fish to further the wellbeing of small-scale dried fish value chain actors and dried fish consumers?
• WSSFC session on the DFM e-book. We expect about 30 contributions on five major themes (Co-learning, Concepts, Recipes, Stories, Value chains). Although the WSSFC precedes the formal launch of the e-book, this should provide an opportunity to highlight some key contributions, present our synthesis findings, and eat some dried fish.
• Synthesis/analysis reports with questionnaire-type structured inputs, or using structured Scoping data from each of the teams. These may be associated with the Working Groups: WG1: Social economy, WG2: Food and nutrition security, and WG3: Policy, Governance, and Development.
• Pilot interventions. This work should involve practice partners within DFM: VSS, DFYWA, Snehakunja Trust, Dakshin Foundation, etc. The project proposal indicates that we will establish a set of benchmark participatory pilot studies of promising interventions into dried fish value chains to improve social and material benefits. In collaboration with our practice partners, we will engage in policy dialogues with major state and civil society actors in South and Southeast Asia to counter the undue attention to the fresh and frozen fish value chains that have crowded out attention to the crucial dried fish sector. The proposal also indicates an expectation that small-scale processor groups will suggest pilot projects that require materials to manufacture tools or equipment for better processing fish. We will fund the production of visually attractive materials about dried fish including pamphlets, policy briefs, information cards, and small folios of recipes.
• Student-led research projects. As noted in the Midterm Report, we anticipate an increased role for local students in guiding primary research.
• SVC surveys. We have reduced the scale of the stacked value chain quantitative survey (now planned for three countries instead of six), although currently only Bangladesh is confirmed as a survey site.
• Edited volume / collaborative monograph. An edited volume may be initiated through the work of the WSSFC panel, listed above.
• Mapping. GIS/maps of dried fish sites, markets, etc.
• Zotero library. Ongoing development and analysis of resources in the DFM Zotero library. We currently have a forthcoming literature review, e-book chapter, and FAO technical paper that have drawn on analyses of this database.
• DFM website. Ongoing knowledge mobilization, ideally bringing in contributions from across the project.
• Data repository. Open QDA data and codebooks shared by research teams.
• Dried Fish Exhibition (virtual and physical/travelling), developed through the Visualization Group. At our Plenary meeting of 2021-12-09, Ratana suggested a travelling exhibition that would allow people to see, smell, touch, and possibly taste dried/fermented fish from each of the DFM countries and contribute to the exhibition. This would be accompanied by a website. The exhibition would conclude in Winnipeg to celebrate the Dried Fish Matters project and achieve media coverage.
• Special Issues of journals. See the Maritime Studies special issue proposal put together by Jenia and Amrita. This is an ancillary output as it doesn't directly focus on dried fish, but should include DFM-funded research.
• Peer reviewed articles. We have promised 15 peer-reviewed articles for the second half of the project; as noted in the SSHRC feedback on the midterm report, our outputs in this area would ideally be higher. We currently have articles promised by Thailand and West Bengal teams as outcomes of their Scoping research (2 each). We also have several articles in submission that were already counted in the Midterm report, including the global literature review for Fish and Fisheries. Exceeding this target would be good; we could ask each Research Team to commit to ONE article that acknowledges DFM funding. We can pay Open Access fees (we have $19,000 budgeted), but DFM funds may need to be supplemented by partner contributions, as ideally all SSHRC-funded research should be Open Access.
• Videos. We promised four new videos. The West Bengal team are interested, among others. We can do this as part of the Dried Fish Exhibition, though we can also use our YouTube channel for more knowledge mobilization.

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