Women’s contributions to coastal fisheries and their management: A comparison between Brazil and Fiji.

Both the fishing industry and small-scale fisheries often present a highly gender-biased image, in which fishers are seen primarily as men. However, according to an estimate by FAO, women constitute about 50% of all fishers and fish farmers, playing a crucial role in seafood production. The invisibility of fisherwomen in social representations, official statistics, and consequently in management policies and practices, has sparked a growing global debate that transcends different sociocultural contexts. In particular, guidelines for gender analysis and gender equity in fisheries have been developed, emphasizing that women’s contributions to fisheries (and thus to food security) should be counted and that fisherwomen inclusion in fisheries management is fundamental. The invisibility of women in coastal, mainly small-scale fisheries manifests itself in a variety of ways, depending on the environmental, political and sociocultural contexts in which they are embedded. Our presentation will compare the experiences of fisherwomen in North-east Brazil and Fiji. To provide an overview of the forms, causes, consequences and possibilities for improving the invisibilisation of fisherwomen in small-scale fisheries, we cross-examine these two case studies through the lens of three key aspects. First, we look at fisherwomen's participation in (mainly subsistence-oriented) fishing activities and the environmental and societal challenges they encounter. Second, we outline the different approaches we have used to make this participation more visible in our research, such as producing quantitative and qualitative data on local fisheries and using existing databases related to fishing activities. Finally, we examine the involvement of fisherwomen in local fisheries management, considering the influence of the historical context and the main barriers and opportunities they face in both regions. This comparison between case studies in Latin America and Oceania makes it possible to identify similar patterns and processes that may be common to other contexts, while also distinguishing historical, sociocultural and governance specificities.