Pedagogy
Youth for the Coast is a residential course for the selected participants that will equip them with information and resources that confront the complex socio-ecology of land and water. During the course, the participants will also engage in peer-to-peer learning, participate in field visits, engage with community leaders, academics and activists currently working on coastal issues to create their own chosen project/intervention they would like to design and implement. The participants will also be introduced to movements/organizations working with the coastal communities to facilitate understanding of fishworkers regarding the policy shifts happening in their areas which will help them respond at the local, regional and national level.
The six-days residential course is divided into multiple sessions keeping a full day for field visit with the following objectives:
- To create a fundamental understanding of the ocean and coast as an ecological system that supports the livelihoods of people engaged in the small-scale fisheries sector.
- To develop an understanding of how the dynamics between ecology, socio-economic and socio-political aspects of the ocean and coast are linked.
- To introduce basic history of fisheries development in India and the narrative of struggle from people’s movements to contextualise discussions on present challenges.
- To give an overview of how law, policy, and governance of the ocean and coast are structured and are changing under the Blue Economy
Curriculum
Introduction to ecology of the ocean and coast, East coast and West coast of India
Objective: To understand the natural resource base that supports fishworkers’ life and livelihoods.
Topics Covered: Coastal geography, ocean dynamics, nature of the coastal terrains of the west and east coast of India, fisheries ecology (understanding where fish is found, lifecycle of key commercial species), seasons on the ocean and east and west coast of India.
Coastal Environment and the Anthropocene
Objective: From understanding the natural ecology in the previous session, this session will focus on the factors that have caused “disturbances” to this environment.
Topics Covered: The age of the “Anthropocene” – Climate change, Impacts of climate change that create various disturbances – coastal erosion, sea level rise, tropical cyclones, storm surges, fish population decline (environment factors).
Marine Ecology and Coastal Commons
Objective: To understand how the ocean and coast operates under the commons.
Topics Covered: Types of fishing practices in India – from “traditional” to modern; the classification fisheries based on size/engine capacity; difficulties of defining what is small scale fisheries and industrial fisheries; how is fisheries potential and Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) calculated?; introduction to allied activities that support fish harvesting. Different types of management regimes in existence, what does it mean when a land-seascape is under a “commons” regime? How is the resource accessed, used and controlled? What are the different competing claims on the coast?
Marine Fisheries Management from Community Management to Technocratic State led frameworks
Objective: To compare and contrast two different types of resource management systems. First, types of norms, values, and techniques practiced by small scale fishworkers through locally developed systems from within the community. Second, state crafted management systems that are enforced through rules and regulations by state agencies. How is the resource accessed, used and controlled? What are the different competing claims on the coast?
Political Economy of Fisheries: Marine Capture and Culture Fisheries
a) Marine Capture Fisheries, Livelihoods and Culture
Objective: Layered over the previous sessions we look at the range of activities (beyond just going out to sea),crafts, knowledge, skills , values, norms and cultural aspects (songs, belief systems) of fisheries as not just a means to livelihood but as a way of life. This session is intended to showcase the rich cultural diversity that exists across the coastline.
b) Shift to culture based fisheries
Objective: To understand the impact of the recent shift from capture based fisheries to culture based fisheries. This is seen across public policies, regulations, schemes and subsidies. Session will look at the impact this has on the political economy of the fisheries sector at large, and livelihoods.
Fisheries, Livelihoods and Culture
Objective: Layered over the previous sessions we look at the range of activities (beyond just going out to sea),crafts, knowledge, skills , values, norms and cultural aspects (songs, belief systems) of fisheries as not just a means to livelihood but as a way of life. This session is intended to showcase the rich cultural diversity that exists across the coastline.
Field Visit : To the nearest coast and other areas of importance, participants are expected to make presentations in groups.
Objective: To understand the types of gear, labour, supply chain, allied activities associated with marine fisheries. Understand and assess the impact of development activities and climate change on the coast and livelihood of fisherfolk. Interaction with local people engaged in various activities along the coast (fishing, sorting, selling, tourism, labour, etc.) and the fishworkers unions.
Women in Fisheries
Related to the role of women in fisheries, the session will address the lack of recognition of them as fishworkers in the governmental and popular parlance. This session would point out the kinds of work women fishworkers are involved in and the way in which they are kept off from policies and welfare schemes.
Fisheries Management (National+international)
Objective: This session will provide a technocratic view of fisheries management, from the perspective of the numerous government agencies that are involved in fisheries. From the research institutes like FSI, CMFRI to MPEDA, NIO and how they link to the Department of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture.
Topics Covered: Structure of the Department of Fisheries, How does the average fishworker engage or are impacted by these state institutions? How and who estimates MSY? How are regulations implemented and monitored? Which agency does the fishworker engage and for what? How do fishers avail schemes and subsidies?
Fisheries public policy and governance
Objective: The previous session would have set the foundation to understand how fisheries policy evolved through the fisherworker movements – which set regulations. This session will cover the MFRA, CRZ, MPEDA Regulations, Monsoon Ban, and other regulatory frameworks. It will also touch upon the influence of marine conservation on regulations.
Case Studies to Understand Modes of Social Action
– CRZ Violation: GIS mapping: Tamil Nadu
– Sustainable Tourism: Sunderbans and New Digha
– Koodankulam
– Disaster and Impact: Digha
– Ennore Creek
Political Framework of Blue Economy and its Implications in India
Objective: To understand the Blue Economy framework propagated by international financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF which led to the launch of various ‘developmental projects’ and port-led infrastructure expansions. It aims to promote the participants to study and analyse how this model impacts the coastal fishworkers, their livelihoods and its impact on ecology.
History of Fishworker Movements and the development decades
Objective: Through the timeline of fisheries development from the 1950s in India, and the INP in Kerala the session will trace how the fishworker movements formed and evolved. By understanding how fisheries we then categorize and recognise not as a social group, but through a technocratic gaze of engine types (mechanised, motorised, non-motorised) This will bring together the political economy perspective and deconstruct the political, social and economic issues by fishworkers today.
Major demands of the fishworker movements today: rights, political agency and resistance
Objective: This session will look at the history of fishworker demands at present, how they have conceptualised ‘rights’ over their resources and sovereignty over decision making. How do they build the agency to protest, demand, claim rights? This would be done as a group session where participants will be divided into groups based on the area they are from and asked to prepare the list on which the resource people will give detailed feedback.