Maritime Studies最新文献

Abstract

This study examines the plight of hilsa fishers in Bangladesh, grappling with challenges such as poor market access, scant capital, and shrinking fish stocks. This situation led to the seasonal dadon loan system, which provides immediate financial aid but often traps many fishers in a relentless debt cycle. We adopted a socio-ecological systems (SES) framework to examine the interconnected social and ecological dynamics of the hilsa fishery industry. Using a blend of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, we assessed the impact of the dadon loan system on small-scale fishers across four fishing locales in Bangladesh. The results indicate that the dadon loan system is a temporary financial prop for fishers but perpetuates debt cycles and curbs long-term financial security. Factors such as restricted access to formal credit, high fishing costs, and inadequate government support drive this system. This study identifies potential alternatives, such as government-backed loans, community finance schemes, and the promotion of alternative livelihoods, which could reduce reliance on the dadon loan system and improve fishers’ socioeconomic conditions. Implementing these strategies may dismantle the debt cycle, boost fishers’ welfare, and strengthen the socio-ecological resilience of fishing communities.

Andalusia, located in southern Spain, has a long coastline and a rich history of fishing activities that encompass extraction, industrialization, and commercialization. However, women have traditionally been underrepresented in various stages of the fishing chain in this region. Despite this, women have made significant contributions to the sustainability and social well-being of fishing households through their involvement in diverse fishing-related tasks. Women in Andalusia have taken on diverse roles in the fishing sector, including administration and support tasks for fishing units, as well as responsibilities related to care and maintenance of domestic services. In 2018, the Andalusian Association of Women in the Fishing Sector (ANDMUPES) was launched with the aim of promoting the effective incorporation of women in different tasks. The study conducted an in-depth questionnaire across 25 ports in Andalusia to gather comprehensive data on the labor situation of women in the fishing sector, as well as to expose the picture of ideological factors and socio-economic conditions that are hindering the access of women to the fishing sector. The study aims to highlight the role of women in the fishing sector and their potential contributions to the innovation, transformation, and sustainability of small-scale fishing.

This article examines the development of marine tenure in the Maullín River, Chile. It starts with the emergence of artisanal red algae (Gracilaria chilensis) gathering and the changes resulting from the governmental ad hoc allocation of small-scale aquaculture concessions. We aim to track this transition, its drivers, effects on the work organization, gender relations, market relations and the sustainability/equity challenges currently confronting the community. We use a feminist political ecology approach to direct our multi-method data collection strategy and to analyse the empirical material. The State by enabling local tenure for the development of marine aquaculture concessions played an influential role in Maullín community attaining de facto territorial tenure. This led to the establishment of residential aquaculture communities while facilitating the integration of women in aquaculture activities. We see both steps as positive economic and social development opportunities in Maullín. While marine tenure has provided livelihood chances, low prices caused by the producers’ disadvantaged market position and the lack of supportive alliance building pose ongoing problems. We conclude that these factors are serious challenges to the sustainability of aquacultural livelihoods at Maullín River. While the case depicts aspects of women’s empowerment such as their engagement in developing potential post-production innovation ideas, entrepreneurial abilities to conduct market transactions as well as their better competence in literacy, math and financial expertise, there is still a long way to reach gender equality in the male-dominated aquacultural sector.

Marine spatial planning (MSP) was developed as a process for managing the marine environment under the scenario of increased demand for space with different uses and economic activities. In the last decades, the research interest in MSP has been reflected by the growing number of published scientific articles on this subject. Nonetheless, a systematic scientific literature review on MSP is still lacking. In this context, the present study is aimed at performing a global review highlighting the main trends and patterns of scientific article contents focusing on the concepts, approaches, and tools that have been used to inform and shape MSP. After text screening and application of the eligibility criteria, a total of 476 articles published between 2004 and 2020 were included in the analysis. The results showed that most studies published so far (74%) focused on conceptual aspects of governance issues (n = 98), investigated the role of economic activities in MSP (n = 98), evidenced the solutions that have been adopted to implement national plans (n = 71), or explored the strategies used to involve stakeholders in MSP (n = 83). A trend towards MSP applicability was expressed by the increasing number of studies related to stakeholders’ engagement methodologies, together with the development of decision support tools for MSP implementation in recent years. Overall, including progressive methodologies in the evaluation and assessment of all stages of MSP are needed to foster its applicability.

A key component of the environment in coastal territories, the sea also creates special geographical features and grounds social and cultural identities. At a time of rising concern and multiple projects for its exploitation as well as its protection, public policies need to consider the social representation of the marine environment and people’s visions of its future. Relying on the concept of maritimity, defined as all the relationships binding human societies to the sea and the resulting landscape, economy and culture, we assess the maritime character of a coastal region in southern France by analysing the local sea–related associations its population are engaged in. This is made possible through the supervised extraction of the relevant data from the national directory of associations, the official database of non-profit associations in France, which are then given appropriate statistical and cartographic treatments. Results provide an indication of the depth of the region’s maritime character, as well as the areas of activity and places in which maritimity is the most developed. These are consistent with the social and economic profile of the region, highly engaged in tourism and a residential economy. Further work is recommended, with a view to exploring the region’s maritimity more closely by comparing it with other regions and applying finer analysis to the stated objectives of the sea-related associations.

Worldwide, marine conflicts are growing in frequency and intensity due to increasing global demands for resources (Blue Growth) and climate change. This article introduces a collection in Maritime Studies on marine conflicts and pathways to sustainability in an era of Blue Growth and climate change. We posit that while conflict can be problematic, it can also play a positive role in bringing about societal change, by highlighting unsustainable and unjust practices and be a trigger for sustainability transformation. However, left unattended, festering marine conflict can hinder just and equitable sustainability transformation. We present two distinct, yet arguably complementary, lenses through which researchers working with sustainability engage with marine conflicts. First, a social-ecological systems approach engages in conflicts by examining the interdependencies between human and ecological systems and related governance arrangements, promoting collaborative learning and action, and exploring adaptive governance strategies that seek sustainability conflict resolution. Second, a political ecology approach addresses conflicts by examining power dynamics and resource (mal)distributions, arguing for fair governance, and emphasizing the need to address historical and current injustices that are at the root of conflicts. Next, we present insights on diverse sustainability transformational pathways, including the importance of searching for common ground and the need for the reconfiguration of power relations as key steps to understand and inform sustainability conflict research. We conclude by indicating that more sustainability research in marine conflict settings is needed and by forwarding intersectionality as a promising approach to productively reframe and disrupt the debilitating effects of deep-rooted marine sustainability conflicts.

Calls to transform food systems along more ethical and sustainable lines are mounting alongside debates about what constitutes transformative change and strategies needed to achieve it. Civil society organizations (CSOs) have argued that transforming food systems requires transforming the governance of food systems, as dominant “productivist” approaches to governance have narrowly invested in corporate priorities while marginalizing the many small-scale food workers that animate our food system. In this paper, we examine the possibilities and unexpected pathways of food system transformation through the case of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines). Mobilized by CSOs, the SSF Guidelines transformed understandings of fisheries sustainability and strategies to achieve it. Moving beyond narrow productivist concerns and capitalist priorities, the SSF Guidelines foreground a diverse range of ethical concerns, economic practices, and values as central to sustainable governance, opening different food system sites, and infrastructural concerns to transformation. Strategically, the SSF Guidelines outline the need to recognize, strengthen, and connect existing “organizational structures” linking fishworkers to invest in (re)building appropriate “infrastructure” for sustainable food systems, especially for women in provisioning, whose organizations, practices, and economic activities have been overlooked. We follow efforts to implement the SSF Guidelines in Tanzania through an initiative to map existing women’s fisheries organizations, an initiative that revealed that these networks are already part of widespread, diverse economies. Mapping served as an inventory of other- and more-than-capitalist practices that enable women’s fishing cooperatives to navigate their interdependency through practices of reciprocity, care, and creativity in seafood systems. Drawing on diverse economies theory and analytic techniques, we argue that food system transformation can be understood as a process “here and now” that can be enacted, in part, by recognizing and amplifying existing social, economic, and political infrastructure for the food system we want.