16 SEPTEMBER 2013 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG to nutrition and income, farmers built collective assets, such as confidence and local cooperation, and individual assets. Several women leaders emerged, such as one woman who became the cooperative president and another who became a technical field supervisor. In the Philippines, green mussel (Perna viridis) farming first began in the 1960s and in 1975 in Samar, Leyte, where Jiabong is the main center. The industry is male-dominated but a multi-scale value chain analysis reported by Marieta Banez Sumagaysay found that women and girls undertook tasks all along the value chain. With the exception of mussel processing and mussel trading, the jobs were mainly non-paid extensions of home work which did not meet the women’s practical gender needs, e.g., for income, healthy working conditions, or their strategic gender needs for self-esteem and better control over their own lives. The Philippine mussel industry has many positive features, such as its sustainable nature and its many jobs, but new approaches are needed so that women can access more powerful and recognized positions to make the industry more gender equitable. Special Workshops at GAF4 NORAD-NACA Workshop on Mainstreaming Gender in the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific Programme NACA took advantage of the presence of a number of gender-in-aquaculture experts to conduct a workshop to give it guidance on fulfilling its Governing Council commitment (March 2012) to mainstream gender into the NACA program. The workshop asked the question: how can the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) mainstream gender into its work program and what strategies can it develop to achieve this? The workshop was co-chaired by Bodil Maal, Senior Gender Advisor of NORAD and Meryl J. Williams, mentor to NACA on gender. Dr Ambekar E. Eknath, the NACA Director General, started with an overview of the NACA work program and referred to key opportunities for integrating gender issue. Gender is one of the cross cutting areas that has been recently introduced by NACA. The main aim was how to bring gender into existing programs, since gender is emerging as a major aquaculture issue. NACA is an important inter-governmental platform for Asia-Pacific, the region that produces the vast majority of world aquaculture production and that supports most of the fish farmers. Therefore, it should take a leading role in raising the profile of gender equality opportunities and issues. Further, its excellent track record in publishing and conducting collaborative studies makes it an ideal platform for three priority actions. First, NACA should develop a thematic gender gap report for Asia-Pacific aquaculture. Second, NACA should craft clear messages, in simple and concrete language on why women are important in aquaculture, what problems constrain their greater contributions, and endeavor to have women’s organizations and policy makers rally to improve the situation. Third, NACA should develop a project targeted at women entrepreneurs in aquaculture, at the SME level. Aquaculture Asia-Europe Meeting (AqASEM), Work Package 7 on” Empowering Vulnerable Stakeholder Groups in Aquaculture Community” Zumilah Zainaludin, Jariah Masud and Tengku Aizan (Malaysia) introduced WP7 of the AqASEM program of the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme and Asian partners. Jariah Masud shared their experiences in conducting the 2012 Workshop on Gender Awareness to introduce the basics of gender in aquaculture issues to policy makers, extension workers and scientists from five countries (Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines). The first hurdle was identifying and attracting appropriate attendees. A pre-test showed that levels of gender and aquaculture knowledge differed widely from country to country and among attendees. For example, the Philippine attendees were much more knowledgeable. At the start of the workshop, some attendees were very reluctant, such as the “men with folded arms” who did not feel they needed to attend, and the scientists who felt that their work was already helping people. Attendees reported major shifts in their appreciation of the issues at the end of the workshop but have not been very responsive since. One such event is clearly not sufficient to make an impact on attitudes and follow-up is needed. Qualitative Research Methods Marilyn Porter (Canada) led a workshop on qualitative research methods for gender research in aquaculture and fisheries, noting that many of the researchers working in the field come from quantitative research backgrounds and continue to cling to many of the forms of such research. Marilyn gave an authoritative review of the rise of feminist scholarship from the 1970s and the early “add women and stir” methods, to the rise of rigorous ethnographic and qualitative approaches in which participants became partners in the research enterprise, not simply subjects. Applying qualitative methods does not deny that data — especially baseline and background information — are needed, but Marilyn stressed that qualitative methods ask different questions, the answers for which often can’t be measured. In analyzing the qualitative information gathered, researchers had to “get used to not having tables and graphs!” However, the non-quantitative methods were rigorous and, properly used, capable of delivery profound insights and explanations. Marilyn outlined the uses for which each of the methods was particularly suited (in the table below), as well as the challenges Qualitative Research Methods • Interview research, especially in depth, open ended interviews • Ethnography • Cross cultural, comparative research • Case studies • Action, community based, participatory research • Literature based research, content research • Life story, narrative research, autobiography and oral history • Visual, audio, dramatic and multi-media research e.g., photo research • Historical research • Diaries and journals
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjExNDY=