Presentation short abstract

This study foregrounds a political ecology praxis that engages with activism – referred to as ‘doing’ political ecology – to note how fishworkers’ organizations negotiate power, translate local grievances into political claims and shape policymaking within contested terrain of blue economy in India.

Presentation long abstract

‘Doing’ political ecology entails translating the ‘framework’ into ‘praxes’ that forge activism as a continuous dialogue with power, a direct advocacy and sustained mobilization against policies that have systematically altered social and ecological vitalities of small-scale economies. We present the case of small-scale fishworkers’ struggle, culminating into ‘counter-action’ against the (long-)prevailing processes of commercialization, technocratic adjustments and inevitable degradation of coastal fisheries. Fishworkers’ movement in the marine sector of West Bengal has its base deep into the persistent protests of fishing community in the southern states in India. Through field-based observations, interviews and participatory engagement, we highlight the victories and vicissitudes of protests since the 1990s and map uneven trajectories of social movement organized by Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF) and National Federation of Small-Scale Fishworkers (NFSF) in West Bengal (India). We, further, note how the activism encapsulates both covert ‘everyday’ response and long-term resistance linking community’s rights to water and livelihoods – something rooted in ecological attachments and relations of mutual dependence. Even then, the potential of the movement can be weakened by factors such as manipulative interests, moral disagreements, and bureaucratized actions. We argue that the activist-scholarship embedded in fishworkers’ protests can be brought into wider discussions of contemporary (and future) struggles in fisheries. To that end, this study also brings insights into how creative platforms translate dense, policy-oriented language into accessible, grounded narratives towards broadening the experience and impacts of doing political ecology.