Some of the social and cultural aspects of marine fishing
communities, as they emerge in the course of the pursuit for food and
livelihood, are the subjects of this paper. The focus is on the marine
fishery of Kerala State, India and attempts to show how these dimensions
evolved in the context of very specific resource and ecological
determinants. Social and cultural dimensions have been often considered
a "drag" on the transformation of societies into modern entities. However,
the numerous failures encountered when development is given an
exclusively techno-economic orientation, provide the basis for a new
search to give meaning to hitherto neglected socio-cultural norms.
This search is all the more relevant in this era of globalisation that
set into momentum the tendency to homogenize social and cultural
specificity. The sustainability of any society will depend in large measure
on the degree of diversity and self-reliance that it is able to maintain
with regard to reproducing its social and cultural concomitants. At the
core of this are issues pertaining to the food and livelihood security of
its people.
The paper examines the visible manifestations of deeper social
and cultural attributes in the marine fishery sector, which have been
fashioned over a very long history. The list includes: the nature of the
sharing patterns in the fishery; traditional knowledge and technology;
the old and new institutional arrangements in fishing communities; fish
and the question food security; and the role of women.
JEL Classification: O17 ; O20: Q22
Key Words: Marine fisheries, Kerala State; social and cultural
dimensions; ecological determinants; food and livelihood security;
History
Publisher
Centre for Development Studies
Citation
Kurien, John (2000) Factoring social and cultural dimensions into food and livelihood security issues of marine fisheries : a case study of Kerala state, India. CDS working papers, no.299. Trivandrum: CDS.