by Ruth Busch
Route 3, Box 188, Lafayette, AL 36862, U.S.A.
1. INTRODUCTION
The role of women in aquaculture, like their role in the rest of the economy, is shaped by the changing division of labour in each society. Women seem to have had a well-defined role in gathering, collecting, or harvesting wild fish and other water-grown foods from reefs and lagoons on many islands. Nevertheless, general anthropological references usually list fishing, especially fishing outside the reef, as a task almost exclusive to men.
Women's involvement in fishing within the Pacific region more often than not is in the capacity of consumer rather than producer. A number of barriers limit women's involvement in production in the cash economy. The underlying problem lies in the sexual division of labour, in which females perform mainly non-productive labour in the home and males perform largely productive labour outside the home. Preconditions for this pattern of division of labour were set by the pre-colonial society but since then the division has become more pronounced. In many cases, the female role in the cash economy is one of consumer and unrecompensed producer (Fahey, 1985).
Women's role in fisheries in the South Pacific is characterized by several paradoxical facts, namely:
(i) the subsistence contribution of women's fishing activities to daily household diets is indispensable in most coastal communities, yet women have minimal access to boats, new technology, or extension assistance from the government fisheries department.(ii) fishing follows an established but culturally variable division of labour between men and women which is often a practical and mutually supportive arrangement, yet where fisheries activities have been formally planned and developed women are largely excluded from direct participation.
(iii) traditional fishing grounds of women, such as the inshore area, shores, swamps, lakes, and rivers, are areas in which various forms of aquaculture are possible, yet in trial aquaculture projects in the region women have not been involved.
The traditional secondary status of women in many fishing communities prevents women from owning capital goods such as canoes and fishing nets, because these are scarce and prestigious. Even if women were able to obtain money to purchase them, it is likely that they would be controlled by men who traditionally exercise control over wealth and property.
Geographically, two distinct types of islands should be recognized. There are high islands whose mountainous interiors collect or create rainfall and store water, thus producing permanent water courses with opportunities for fresh water ponds. The low islands and atolls get no more rainfall than the surrounding sea, have limited fresh water, and have limited potential for aquaculture. The largest high island in Pacific Oceania (and second to Greenland in the world) is New Guinea with 820 033 km , about two and a half times the area of the British Isles. It has a mountainous spine rising 4 000 metres. Melanesia has several smaller islands which are similarly well watered. Micronesia, as the name implies, has small islands. There are both high and low islands in Polynesia, although the total area with Hawaii excluded is only about 3 times the area of Micronesia. The two biggest islands in the Caribbean are Cuba (114 525 km) and Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic, 76 029 km). The Asian Islands also include many which are large and mountainous. Mountains and water have always been important to island populations. It is often the supply of fresh water which limits both the size of populations and the agriculture (and aquaculture) which can be practised.
2. OCEANIA
2.1 Micronesia
Micronesia consists primarily of small island atolls. These low atolls have little fresh water available for use in aquaculture. The capture fishery is still rich in Micronesia. Fish production in Micronesia is most likely increased more efficiently through reef enhancement than through aquaculture.
In the past, women gathered crabs, shellfish and finfish caught in tidal pools in Ulithi (Lessa, 1966). On Palau (Barnett, 1979) they gathered sea urchins and clams. Women were fish collectors in Truk, on Puluuat, and on Hall Islands where they also joined men in 'night speak fishing' (a sport) and helped in fish surrounds. Women also set up independent surrounds using small handnets in groups of 12 or more women. Women fish the reefs and lagoons using nets, pots and lines, spears and rafts.
Change has been occurring in Micronesia. Severance (1977) documents the shift in a fishing community from an older pattern where men supported their sisters to the present support of wives. The society has changed from matrilineal to patrilineal organization in response to the influence of modernization. Women's power in the society has diminished as a result.
Men apparently dominate activities which are seen as monetary or modern. Aquaculture is experimental and, like much of the agriculture in Micronesia, may be in the hands of Philippine or other Asian expatriates. To the extent that aquaculture is perceived to be part of the modern commercial sector, it will be seen as the province of men.
2.2 Polynesia
Polynesia consists of both high and low islands. The high islands of Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, and Tonga have greater potential for aquaculture development than the low island atolls of Tikopia and Samoa.
On Nukumanu, a Polynesian Island politically within Papua New Guinea's North Solomons Province, women seem never to have had an important role in harvesting the sea (Feinberg, 1986). Yet the development of a commercial economy, first in copra (a coconut product) and later in beche-de-mer (sea cucumber), and trochus (shells), has lowered the status of women. In earlier times the power and prestige of women rested on the staple food, a variety of swamp taro which has been replaced as a staple by wheat flour and rice, and whose cultivation was made difficult by mosquitos. Feinberg says: "On rare occasion, young women will dive to spear fish; but this is very much the exception. More commonly, but still unusual, a woman can collect beche-de-mer or shellfish on the reef during low tide." Nukumanu has had a particularly strong division of the sexes. Men have dominated lagoon, sea, and coconut; women tended taro and the domestic scene.
Women on Tonga are reported gathering crustaceans and shellfish, usually working in groups and sometimes under male supervision. Local raiding by neighbours bent on abducting the women themselves seems to have accounted for the male escort (Mariner, 1818; Gifford, 1929; Beaglehole & Beaglehole, 1941). Reports in the 1970s (Maude, 1973; dark, 1974) say that Tongan fishing was insufficient to meet domestic demand. Imported canned meat and fish were substituted.
The present strategy of developing Eucheuma farms in Tonga and Kiribati is through family groups whereby farm ownership belongs to a man. Schoeffel opines that Eucheuma should be promoted through village women's committees in Western Samoa, Tuvalu and Kiribati as women's communal projects. The reasons for this are:
- in a family project, it is likely that women will be doing most of the work anyway, since attaching the plants to ropes, checking plants for predators, and cutting the plants for harvest are routine tasks requiring a dexterity and patience attributed to women in most Pacific countries;- Eucheuma farming falls within the traditional scope of women's fishing, utilizing the shore area which women glean for shellfish;
- as a technically new project, farming Eucheuma through a women's group minimizes the risk (and the shame and ridicule) of failure by individuals or families;
- Eucheuma requires daily attention to the beds and plants; if women's committees were to farm Eucheuma as a communal venture, they could spread the labour requirements among members; women's committees in Western Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Fiji have a tradition of carrying out communal projects to raise funds for the community;
- by pioneering Eucheuma production through women's groups, rural people could learn about the crop and gain experience towards eventual individual cultivation if they wished;
- despite the usual legal provisions which accord ownership of the shore and sea to the state. Pacific islanders tend to have a collective proprietary interest in the shoreline close to their traditional land holdings. Competition and conflict over use of the shoreline zone would be minimized if seaweed was farmed as a project which benefited everyone in the community.
The pattern repeats itself through the ethnographic literature, where the reader finds descriptions of male deep sea fishing, the "hunting" of bigger and more dangerous fish, and females poking about on the reefs and in the shallows, "gathering" clams, crabs, octopi, and some fish. The men's work is risky, both in danger and in possibility of failure. The women's work is usually more secure in profit and in person (except where warfare makes the women themselves the prey of enemy men).
Pollnac (1982) suggests that aquaculture, when introduced to communities which have been supported by marine fishing, may be seen as women's work, and could not then be successfully introduced through men. Both the nature of the cultivar (shrimp, crabs, seaweed, fish) and the aquacultural activity (shallow water, safe, economically secure and mildly profitable) might lead to its definition as a woman's role. On the other hand, the modern, monetized sector seems to attract men.
In a number of locations men and women have participated together in harvesting the sea. Both sexes may spear fish or grab them by hand while swimming or wading in sheltered water. Both use nets, although in many places the nets used by each sex are quite distinct. Under the influence of commercial economies the division of labour by sex may become relaxed, as Firth (1984) shows on Tikopia. Men became scarce as they went off-island for wages, and women did "men's" work. But the division of labour became more rigid at Kelantan (Malaysia) where fishing itself was commercialized.
Firth (1930) says that women fished only with scoop nets on the reef at Tikopia, although they participated in important rituals regarding fishing. They carried baskets of caught fish, under strict taboos which enforced their total silence while they were identified with female deities. In the 1930s men exclusively handled canoes, line fishing, setting large nets in the lake, and catching flying-fish by torchlight, while women fished with hand nets on the reef and collected shellfish. However, Firth (1959) noted that some young women were paddling canoes, even in the difficult exercise of catching flying-fish. Firth attributes the extension of the role of women to the shortage of men due to wage-labour recruitment from abroad. Ceremonial canoes were still banned to women.
On Samoa both men and women participated in collecting from the sea, but used different techniques or captured different prey. Men fished for octopus from a canoe using baited lines. Women looking for octopus waded in the lagoon at low tide poking sticks in caves and cracks in the coral, or reaching into holes with their hands. Men and boys fished with nets, lines, and torches. Women gathered invertebrates, and occasional fish in tidal pools. Men fished from canoes, but women might occasionally "poke about with sticks from a canoe in shallow water." (Grattan, 1948). Men, women, and children participated in communal netting of fish in the lagoon: men handled the nets but women and children beat the waters, and might catch escaping fish which they could claim as their own (the netted catch belonged to all who participated). Men and women together participated in gathering the palolo worm (Grattan, 1948): "... as the method is to gather up the swarming worm in scoops of mosquito netting or cheese cloth, the catch is taken from a canoe or other boat. Women in this case fish together with men from a canoe."
Mead (1928) says of Samoan girls fishing that "Once they are regarded as individuals who can devote a long period of time to some consecutive activity, girls are sent on long fishing expeditions. They learn to weave fish baskets, to gather and arrange the bundles of faggots used in torchlight fishing, to tickle the devil fish until it comes out of its hole ... to string the great rose-coloured jelly-fish ..."
A practice approaching cultivation arose in the lagoons of Samoa: rocks were piled to make "resting places" for fish (Buck, 1930); women might grope for the hidden fish by hand, or hold baskets near the rock pile while disassembling it from the far side. Both men and women swam or drifted with eyes under the surface in shallow water, carrying a stick with which they could rest without cutting themselves on the coral, or spear a fish.
2.3 Melanesia
Several aquaculture projects have been undertaken in Melanesia which include fish, shrimp, clam and oyster culture in Fiji, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, and Papua New Guinea. None of the project reports address the participation of women.
The Melanesian islands, except New Zealand, are generally major importers of fishery products (Kent, 1980). The islands have few exports yet import much of their food. Modern commercial fisheries for local consumption have not been developed and subsistence fishing has declined with the growth of wage labour. Canned fish from abroad are now cheaper than local fresh fish. The islands are protein short and have serious nutritional problems.
As women in the islands are primarily responsible for domestic production for home consumption, aquaculture may be a feasible production alternative for women. This would particularly be true in the higher islands which have the water resources necessary for aquaculture production.
Aquaculture when introduced as new, modern, and western becomes the province of men. The ethnographic record shows, however, no serious impediments on most islands to the involvement of women. Women have long poked about on the reefs and in the lagoons. Aquaculture, especially for domestic consumption, should be accessible to women.
People of the highlands have no traditions surrounding fish. Tilapia have been spread through the islands since World War II, and, until recently have been regarded as trash fish. New Guinea produces tilapia and exports trout from highland establishments run, presumably, by expatriates. As women participate in gardening and in pig raising, aquaculture production by women should not be a problem.
Ciguatoxication of warm water fish may present a constraint for women in fish production in Oceania. Ciguatera is a poison found in some types of fish in some places. Reef and other fish caught in shallow water are more commonly implicated. Ciguatoxic fish seem to be more common where reefs have been damaged by construction, dumping, or other pollution. Predatory fish (higher on the food chain) are often the most toxic. Women tend to fish primarily in shallow water and their catch may have a greater incidence of ciguatera, especially where reef enhancement projects have been implemented. An extensive study of historical records (Halstead, 1967) yielded a tally of more than 4 508 victims of ciguatera of whom more than 542 died, giving a death rate of about 12%.
3. CARIBBEAN ISLANDS
Fisheries in the Caribbean were little described until after they were dominated by commercial fishing. Carib women fished small streams and ponds along the sea by stunning the fish with the juices of certain plants which the women pounded and threw into the water (Taylor, 1938). Many communities which once subsisted from the sea no longer have fishing technology. They are left with sea stories and minimal shore fishing skills; they may not even have access to a boat.
Jamaican shore villagers still find fish production important. Fishing itself seems to be a man's job, but women participate in marketing. The long distance higglers, women who trade from the sea to inland towns, will buy farm products, trade them for fish (and profit), and return inland with the fish. Local higglers may buy fish to sell cooked to market crowds (Steward, 1956). In fishing villages, most women are involved somewhere in the fishing industry but never directly in fish production. In a few areas women may invest directly in fish harvesting, owning, for example, the pot traps.
Modern aquacultural development is occurring in Jamaica. Women and children take care of the small (less than one acre) ponds all over the islands. Some women also own commercial aquaculture farms in Jamaica but numbers are not available. There are women biologists and extension workers in Jamaica. A frequent comment on women in the Caribbean was: "If it is work then it is done by women."
On Grenada an artisanal fishery competes with a commercial fishery on the opposite side of the island. Women participate in marketing the fish caught with traditional beach seines. Women have no role in the commercial fishery which has been subsidized by the government through provision of a wharf and fish market (Epple, 1977).
Table 1 describes a number of new projects, both government and private, which have been implemented in the Caribbean in more recent years.
Table 1. Development projects implemented in the Caribbean region
|
Island Project |
Measure of size ($, hectares, tons) |
Cultivar |
|
Puerto Rico |
$ 3 000 000 |
Prawn |
|
Sabana Grande |
|
Langostinos de Caribe |
|
Antigua |
6 t, 2 ha grow-out ponds |
Shrimp |
|
Martinique |
4 000 000 PLs/year 20 ha |
M. rosenbergii |
|
Guadeloupe |
16 000 000 PLs/year |
M. rosenbergii |
|
Cayman Islands |
15 000 year |
Turtles |
|
Maritek, Bahamas |
10 000 ha planned needs funds, hatchery (40 ha developed) |
Shrimp |
There is no mention of women in connection with any of these projects. That omission cannot be taken as evidence that women are not involved in aquacultural production; if involved, they are 'invisible'.
Women are probably involved in day-to-day care of all Caribbean small-scale fish ponds, but numerical data are not available. Women, including Auburn University graduates, are involved as biologists and extension agents in the region.
4. SUMMARY
Published information indicates that island communities have begun the development of aquaculture (Pollnac, 1982) Investment by the developed countries, either through the private sector or through development grants or loans, has been enthusiastic but capricious: projects are started and abandoned. Commercial development of export crops gets more publicity than development of small-scale, subsistence aquaculture for domestic consumption. Expatriate advisers (fisheries. Peace Corps, agriculture) Observe that women are involved in small-scale, subsistence aquaculture in the Caribbean, and in the non-production aspects of larger scale, commercial aquaculture in many places. That is, women are everywhere involved in production, extension, marketing, and processing of fish.
In Oceania the role of aquaculture in fish production is decidedly minor. A survey of fishing throughout Oceania fails to mention any aquaculture at all for about half the island groups. Low islands are seldom involved in aquaculture, although baitfish, clams and shrimp ventures sometimes occur on low islands. Elsewhere aquaculture seems to be just starting, both experimental and commercial, and thus apparently taken to be in the province of men. There are hints of aquaculture failure followed by emergent success in small ponds on New Guinea; tilapia for subsistence; trout for export.
In general, islanders are enthusiastic about fish. Most islanders, anomalously, have to import fish to meet local needs. There are many suggestions for development to meet these needs. Small-scale, local, commercial capture fishing, using modern equipment, is one approach. Artisanal fishing, using more traditional equipment, is another. Aquaculture may also be an option.
Although the data which back a conclusion are sparse, it would seem that women would participate more easily in subsistence aquaculture in island communities than in commercial schemes. Their Oceanian practice of poking about collecting fish for family consumption, or of tending the small ponds in the Caribbean, show that women are already involved with fish for subsistence. This is important to the nutrition of islanders; increased protein intake appears to be needed. Yet patterns of intervention seem to vacillate between support of local self-sufficiency and dedication to an economics of specialization and trade. When islanders specialize and trade, their best trade seems to be to rent their fishing rights to those better equipped to do the fishing. Such capitalism has several problems: the fishers from afar enter the island waters on an open access basis (Bailey, et al., 1986) and they may abuse the fishery. The island owners are powerless to enforce their right to collect rent or to require proper conservation and they are dependent on good faith. Because of male predominance in the political realm, women and children may not profit fairly from the rental payments.
Women and children who are not already incorporated into the modern economy would, perhaps, profit most from development directed at subsistence aquaculture. Their entry into commercial aquaculture would be best accomplished at levels other than fish production.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to many people: to the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture at Auburn University, particularly to Professors John Grover, Don Moss, Brian Duncan and Ron Phelps and to Secretary Jackie Adams. Rural sociologists Conner Bailey and Joe Molnar have shared their experience in the social science of fishing, Conner Bailey supplying my orientation to the field. Auburn's Dean of the Graduate School, Norman Doorenbos, supplied information on ciguatera. Auburn graduate students Brian Nerrie, Steven Meyers, and Susan Holland have contributed. Cited in the report are telephone conversations with Nancy Blanks, returned Peace Corps director for Micronesia now at Western Carolina University, and Ray Lett, Department of Interior, Washington, D.C. Paul Starr, Auburn Sociology has been helpful as always. My peripatetic husband, Charles Busch, now of La Molina, Peru, did library work for me when last he passed through Auburn. And I must thank my typist, a 1983 Kaypro, upon whose 18 inch shoulders I'll lay the blame for all small errors in this report. The major errors, however, remain my own.
