Small-scale fisheries (SSF) in the Global South are increasingly subjected to the internationalisation of food systems. Guided by a feminist political ecology approach, we examine how gender relations and power structures within SSF are changing through policy interventions and market linkages. Chilean women working in SSF have traditionally been unregistered direct producers. Since the early 2000s, however, women have formally entered as fishers within this hitherto male-dominated space. Today, women constitute almost a quarter of artisanal fishers in Chile. While women have become more visible, among others, in their engagement in territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs), little research attention has been paid to women’s roles within SSF. We redress this shortfall by examining the struggle to obtain TURFs by an all-women seaweed gatherers union in Coliumo (Bio-Bio Region, Chile). Using participatory research tools, we describe key gendered interactions and events over a local struggle for resources. Our findings show how closely related episodes of cooperation and conflict were involved in realising TURFs, which included differently-gendered relationships. While the women implicated in formalising fishing entitlements accrued individual benefit and enhanced their collective standing, the conflict left a deep scar among women in the community.

Though Internet and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been employed in small-scale fisheries (SSFs) globally, they are seldom systematically explored for the ways in which they facilitate equality, democracy and sustainability. Our study explored how ICTs in South African small-scale fisheries are leveraged towards value chain upgrading, collective action and institutional sustainability—key issues that influence small-scale fishery contributions to marine resource sustainability. We held a participatory workshop as part of ongoing research in the town of Lambert’s Bay, South Africa, in collaboration with small-scale fishers and the Abalobi ICT project. We mapped fisher value chain challenges and explored the role of ICT-driven transformation pathways, adopting Wright’s ‘Real Utopian’ framework as the lens through which to explore equality, democracy and institutional sustainability. We found Abalobi’s ICT platform had the potential to facilitate deeper meanings of democracy that incorporate socio-economic reform, collective action and institutional sustainability in South Africa’s small-scale fisheries. Where fishers are not engaged beyond passive generators of data, this had the potential to undermine the goals of increasing power parity between small-scale fisheries and other stakeholders.

: 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.

The agri-pastoralist communities of the semi-arid region of Chile, with their unusual common land ownership, have not escaped economic neo-liberalism. The general pattern of insatiable demand of land for agricultural production, mining, energy generation and real-estate development has become a challenge for these communities. How are these processes affecting the traditional practices of these localized agri-food systems, based on rain-fed-agriculture, pastoralism and the fading practice of transhumance? In this article, we look at how the Huentelauquén Agricultural Community in the Canela Commune has dealt with, reacted to, and been affected by regional economic shifts geared towards market liberalization. In particular, we analyze the structural changes in the community in regard to alienation of the commons and changes in land tenure. Qualitative interviews were conducted with key informants in this setting. To provide a richer contextual setting, this article draws on several other empirically-based works on the commons’ emergence and evolution, land commoditization and local struggles for livelihoods. Our study shows that a community can adopt different strategies when dealing with powerful sectoral development that can involve resistance as well as positioning that seeks to find favorable terms of engagement. Our findings highlight that processes affecting the traditional commons are resulting in the re-appropriation and re-occupation of the land. This is resulting in social differentiation, weakening of the community’s social bonds, depeasantization and further degradation of an already vulnerable ecosystem. In sum, these shifts are posing an existential threat to this form of traditional agri-pastoralism.