Paper short abstract:

I would like to deliver an image of how grassroots mobilisation works in the coastal region of Thiruvananthapuram district, among unorganised fish workers. I intend to give an insight into how and what led the fish workers to mobilise and resist government-sponsored capitalist development.

Paper long abstract:

Since India’s liberalization in the 1990s, state-sponsored capitalist development has come to be accepted as the norm of the ‘development’ trajectory. Resource-rich areas, inhabited mainly by traditional livelihood-based groups, have been known to be exploited and appropriated by such norm. India’s post-independence “industrialization” phase, which included the “modernization” of fisheries, led to the formation of a complex power structure and power dynamics along the coasts of Kerala. This paper examines the coastal power structures and dynamics therein that facilitate and limit the participation of the various stakeholders, leading to resistance along the coasts. It navigates through the economic, political and social positionalities of the key social actors in the context of the Vizhinjam International Seaport in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala in India. In the process of exploring the invited and organic participatory spaces, we look into the ways in which government-sponsored capitalized development has led to resistance among the marginalized small-scale fish workers living along the coasts of Thiruvananthapuram. These complex power dynamics have led to the reproduction of social inequalities as well as the production of new opportunities for certain groups while the lives and livelihoods of the small-scale fish workers have been compromised. Such varied impacts of the port led to protests by small-scale marginalized fish workers facilitated by social action groups, environmentalists, activists, and most importantly, the Thiruvananthapuram Latin Catholic Diocese. The study emerges from the in-depth field study involving interviews, observations, dialogues among various stakeholders, and focus group discussions.