Outside the Net. Women’s Participation in Fishing Activities in Trincomalee District of Sri Lanka

Gayathri Lokuge, PhD, former candidate at Wageningen University and Senior Researcher at CEPA, conducted an ethnographic fieldwork on fisher household livelihood trajectories in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

‘The woman left us slowly and moved to the other side of the beach seine, sat down on the sand and started piling the seaweed after the men removed it from their nets… The woman didn’t touch the seaweed till it was laid on the beach, sorted out by the men and placed outside their nets.’ (Observations, 14th Nov 2013 at Kinniya beach).

I observed this process during a visit to Kinniya beach in the eastern Trincomalee district in Sri Lanka, as part of my PhD field research. At the time I remember wondering, why are these women not touching the seaweed till it is placed outside the net? Is it custom and tradition that’s preventing them from being involved in this particular part of the process? Would these women be allowed ‘inside the net’ if men acknowledged the fact that these women were supporting their families through this important income-generating activity? Would these women even be willing to be ‘inside the net’? I might not be able to answer all of these questions by the end of this blog, but I would like to elaborate on some of the issues linked to this situation.

https://securelivelihoods.org/outside-the-net-womens-participation-in-fishing-activities-in-trincomalee-district-of-sri-lanka/