Invigorating women’s empowerment in marine fishing to promote transformative cultures and narratives for sustainability in the blue economy: a scoping literature review from the Global South

Baker Matovu (), Raimund Bleischwitz (), Meltem Alkoyak-Yildiz () and Sudha Arlikatti ()
Additional contact information
Baker Matovu: Amrita School for Sustainable Futures
Raimund Bleischwitz: Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)/University of Bremen
Meltem Alkoyak-Yildiz: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality (CWEGE)
Sudha Arlikatti: Amrita School for Sustainable Futures

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2024, vol. 29, issue 8, No 7, 45 pages

Abstract: Abstract Marine fishing is a crucial component of the blue economy (BE), an avenue for sustainable livelihoods, and the socioeconomic development of economies, predominantly in the global south. However, marine fishing is increasingly dotted with (un)sustainability issues, including the exclusion of fisherwomen in fisheries value chains, and lucrative fisheries socioeconomic livelihoods opportunities, worsened by socio-cultural biases. This creates unsustainable futures and missed opportunities due to women’s disempowerment. Acknowledging literature gaps in documenting the potential of fisherwomen in marine fishing, we use a case study of Kerala state in India, to showcase emerging best-case women’s empowerment (WE) spaces to promote new cultures of sustainability. We demonstrate this using a scoping literature review of 60 articles on marine fishing in Kerala. Findings highlight the transformative potential of marine fishing to WE in the social, economic, political/institutional governance, and psychological domains. To our knowledge, this is one of the few in-depth review studies in India that succintly provides evidence that can change the traditional narrative (bias/stereotypes) on women’s exclusion in the fisheries sector. This paper demonstrates the possibilities for using marine fishing as a driver for WE in tropical coastal fishing communities. To facilitate the replicability of the transformative narratives and key lessons from Kerala highlighted in the study, we developed a novel pathway called, the “Transforming Cultures for Marine Fisherwomen Empowerment Pathway (TCMFEP) which has seven (7) key steps. Insights from Kerala and the TCMFEP reveal that, with the development of systematic, inclusive empowerment arenas, and robust policies/cultures, sustainability narratives in marine fishing are possible. These can unlock barriers to fisherwomen empowerment, especially in vulnerable tropical fishing countries. As there is increased realization of the co-benefits of tapping women into marine fishing livelihoods spaces and value chains, co-designing of best options for WE should be emphasized. This could further lead to comprehensive ocean sustainability narratives needed for just and sustainable future transitions.

Keywords: Marine fishing; Blue Economy; Sustainability narratives and cultures; Social gendered identities; Women’s empowerment; Transforming cultures for marine fisherwomen empowerment pathway (TCMFEP); Kerala; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11027-024-10173-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:29:y:2024:i:8:d:10.1007_s11027-024-10173-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11027

DOI: 10.1007/s11027-024-10173-x

Access Statistics for this article

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change is currently edited by Robert Dixon

More articles in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().