“A Sea of One’s Own!” A Perspective on Gendered Political Ecology in Indian Mariculture

In India, mariculture is a sunrise enterprise. Technologies that have attracted the imagination of coastal stakeholders include mussel farming, seaweed farming and open sea cage culture. Mussel (Perna viridis) farming technology has diffused along the Malabar coast (southwest India), and seaweed (Kappaphycus alverezii) farming prevails along the Coromandel coast (southeast India), after it found a niche in the Gulf of Mannar. Having proven their potential as empowerment platforms for coastal women, the theatres where these technologies were adopted raised a number of issues in the realm of a gendered political ecology. The aim of this paper is not only to diagnose these issues but juxtapose them with some of the epistemological concerns being brought by “gender lens” scholarship, especially in the neo-liberal context of global fisheries. A paradox brought out by the present study is the ambivalence of the State in manifesting itself as a positive “bargaining” force in the intra-household domestic space (by providing State-sponsored platforms through the Self Help Groups) while leaving the “common access resource” space, from which these platforms gain sustenance, less amenable to its democratic ideals.