The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication 1 Exploring the socio-cultural contexts of fishers and fishing: developing the concept of the 'good fisher'
There is an emerging call for social scientists to pay greater attention to the social and cultural contexts of fishing and fishers. A resulting literature is evolving which focuses on individual life experiences, particularly relating to entering the fishing occupation, and what these might mean for the future sustainability of the fishing industry. However, the ways in which these lives are linked and intergenerationally connected remains somewhat of a blindspot. This article considers the potential of a lifecourse approach to help us better understand how fishers accumulate, utilise and share capital(s) in getting onto and moving along the ‘fishing ladder’. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative research with fishing families on the Llŷn peninsula small‐scale fishery in north Wales (UK) the article explores how there are multiple social contexts from which ‘prospective fishers’ can begin their fishing career and which differentially (re)shape how they can accumulate capital over time. Later on in the lifecourse, fishers (re)negotiate their fishing identities in relation to the lives of others, within transitions such as parenthood as well as with older age. The article's findings offer a much‐needed temporal dimension to our understanding of fishing lives and what it means to be a ‘good fisher’.
Coastal tourism has been supported by the growth of middle-class tourist markets, promoted by governments who view it as an important avenue for economic growth and backed by environmental organisations who regard it as an alternative, more environmentally sustainable livelihood than capture fisheries. How policymakers and households in coastal areas negotiate the challenges and opportunities associated with growing tourism and declining capture fisheries is increasingly important. Drawing on extended ethnographic fieldwork from the Philippines between 2006 and 2018, this paper examines the transition from fishing to tourism and the consequences for one coastal community. I focus on land tenure as a key variable that shapes the effects and opportunities associated with livelihood transitions from fishing to tourism. While tourism has not been inherently positive or negative, the ability of local households to negotiate the boom and obtain the full benefits out of it is questionable. Many fishers have switched their primary livelihood activity to tourism, including the construction of tourist boats, working as tour guides or providing accommodation. However, the growth of tourism has prompted several attempts to evict the community, including from local elites who aimed to develop resorts on the coast and a recent push by the national administration to 'clean up' tourist sites around the country. I argue that land tenure in coastal communities should be more of a focus for researchers working in small-scale fisheries, as well as for researchers working on land rights.
Both fisheries and feminism have been the subject of much research spanning academic disciplines and topics for many years. The papers in this themed issue are considered 'fishy' in the sense that they are both about fisheries and fish in diverse places, but also because they use a feminist lens, and feminism is often taken as something suspicious that can be doubted by virtue of the social bias associated with the term. Feminism has long offered an understanding of how patriarchal frameworks are embedded within larger structures of societies that maintain social inequities. In their various papers, the authors bring critical insight to understanding the significance of feminist research and its potential for understanding the connections between place and the future of our relationship with oceans and marine ecosystems. This themed issue contributes to a hopefully growing interest in feminist insights to fisheries and ocean/ maritime spaces, and addresses more broadly, the argument that (feminist) geography has remained 'land-locked' .
Fishy feminism: Feminisms in fisheries researchBoth fisheries and feminism have been the subject of much research spanning academic disciplines and topics for many years. This has led to a wide variety of theories, methods, and frameworks on fisheries and feminism. Or, more simply, fisheries and feminisms are multiple and diverse, and are shaped by cultures and societies in specific places and spaces, changing over time.
Whilst fishing men have commonly been investigated through the lens of 'hegemonic masculinity', recent studies have highlighted a potential change and nuancing of such fishing masculinities. Inspired by the call to pay attention to masculinities as fluid, contextual and interpersonal, this paper pays attention to scalar, placed and temporal specificities to consider how 'socially-dominant masculinities' can develop (and persist) in specific contexts. A case study of the North Wales Llŷn peninsula fishery is drawn upon in examining how local practices (re)define what it means to be a man in this area. The paper highlights the continued importance of the physicality of fishing in shaping locally socially-dominant masculinities -noting how fisher's bodies are not only central to masculine performances but also embody their fishing history and their relative positioning in their locality. It considers the relational nature of fishing masculinities -noting how masculinity is written both spatially in relation to practices 'on land' and 'at sea' and also temporally through reference to both past practices and predecessors. Finally, the paper considers changes to fishing masculinities, especially associated with family life and changing economic contexts, noting how such new practices may be incorporated into longer-standing aspects of fishing masculinity.
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