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Women coping with change in an icelandic fishing community
Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 311–321, 2000 Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0277-5395/00/$–see front matter
Pergamon
PII S0277-5395(00)00089-3
WOMEN COPING WITH CHANGE IN AN ICELANDIC FISHING COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Science, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
Synopsis — In Iceland we find great commitment to market solutions in the fishery as exemplified by the individually transferable quota system (ITQ). This management system, along with the state’s diminishing commitment to regional planning, have had marked impact on the people who live in fishing communities. In this article, I explore some of the consequences of these changes on women’s lives within a particular fishing village. The inhabitants of the village have not been able to take advantage of the new system in which fewer and larger companies are taking over. The inhabitants are consequently faced with the process of increased marginalization that presents new challenges to which men and women respond differently. The coping mechanisms adopted by women stress community and working together whereas men respond more on an individual level. The already existing gender divisions within fishing communities underpin the different responses and coping strategies. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Presently, great transformations are taking place in fishing policies and in regulation of access to marine resources in Iceland. During the 1990s, the establishment of the individually transferable quota system (ITQ), which made fishing quotas freely tradeable between vessels, has had a marked impact on the people who live in fishing communities all around Iceland. According to this system of resource management only those who own or can afford to rent quota shares are allowed to catch fish. The media as well as researchers have for the most part focused on changes affecting fishers, fishery enterprises and the fishing industry as a whole. New market relations, commitment to market solutions and diminishing commitment of the state to regional planning have brought gains to some and losses to others. Yet the Icelandic national discourse hardly mentions the effects of current changes in small villages, particularly on women. In this article, I ex-
This research has been generously funded by the Icelandic Research Council and the University of Iceland. I would like to thank my research assistant Hulda Proppé for her help and Siri Gerrard, Dona L. Davis, Ásdís Jónsdóttir, Annadís Gréta Rúdólfsóttir and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on this article.
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plore some of the consequences of these changes on women’s lives within Eyri (pseudonym), a single, small, Icelandic, fishing village. The inhabitants of Eyri have not been able to take advantage of the new system in which fewer and larger companies are taking over. This is a case study of what happens in small villages when access to fishing is lost due to a new resource management system. The inhabitants of Eyri are consequently faced with the process of increased marginalization that presents new challenges to which men and women respond differently. The coping mechanisms adopted by women stress community and working together whereas men respond more on an individual level. The already existing gender divisions within fishing communities underpin the different responses. For example, in Eyri and similar communities, men have been fishers and have been in control of local politics and the local fish industry, whereas women have been in charge of fish processing and of maintaining family and kinship ties. Before turning attention to the village of Eyri, I briefly examine the Icelandic fisheries and fishing policies, focusing on the ITQs, to better understand the larger picture of which the village is a part. Then I depict some impor-
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tant aspects of gender relations in Icelandic fishing communities. This sheds light on how women’s and men’s experiences of and responses to the current crisis in Eyri link into construction of femininity and masculinity. ANALYTICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH Over the last decade stereotypes of women in fishing economies and communities have been challenged and more realistic views of their social and economic contributions and positions have been offered. Women’s responses to recent changes in a variety of North Atlantic settings have also been examined (Binkley, 1995; Gerrard, 1995; Neis, 1995). Nadel-Klein and Davis (1988), in their edited volume on women in the fisheries, warned against the tendency to over-emphasize the similarities found in women’s lives in fishing communities. They argued “that to understand fishing communities and economies, the adaptive challenges of fishing must be placed within the specific context of history, political economy and gender ideology” (p. 6). Other feminist anthropologists (e.g., Moore, 1993) have also emphasized issues of diversity, stressing not only the differences between men and women, but also the differences among women themselves. This study approaches gender from a social constructionist viewpoint (Scott, 1992; Smith, 1987; Weedon, 1987). The discourses of knowledge circulating in society are not only structured by the social and economic conditions in which women find themselves, but also shape women’s understanding and experiences of their social circumstances. In spite of a current emphasis on other aspects in identity construction, such as class and age, gender plays a large role in forming people’s identities and in defining their position in society. Gender is an important part of economic life, politics as well as the households. As Scott (1988) has pointed out, “gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (p. 42). Including other aspects of identity construction such as age and class can help us depict the diversities found among women. An analysis of the social construction of gender, which takes into account diversities among women and men, can help us avoid the creation of new static categories of
women (Pratt & Hanson, 1994). Approaching gender in this way when examining the changes in a fishing village gives a better estimation of the effects of various economic changes on women’s lives and the different responses of men and women. The different groups of women in a small fishing community are affected in various ways. They, however, respond collectively to the crisis and play down the diversities among themselves and focus on common interests. In this sense their identities are not just based on their relation to the fisheries as fishers’ wives or fish processors but also on location, as those belonging to a particular community. This is an element that has been growing stronger at a time of crisis (Skaptadóttir, 1996). The field research upon which this article is based was conducted in the village of Eyri in the summers of 1996 and 1997. It is part of a larger study on women’s lives in fishing communities, which also includes a larger village in the West Fjords. Interviews were conducted with 14 women and 4 men in the village, some of them repeatedly. Important information was also gained from informal discussions with those interviewed and other members, both men and women, of the community. In the semi-structured interviews the women were asked about the various effects of the recent changes on their lives and encouraged to talk about their responses to the crisis experienced in the community. The women were in the age range from 20 to 55 years and most of them had lived in the village or its vicinity for most of their adult lives. Six of the 14 women were fish-plant workers; the fish plant hires the greatest number of women in the village. The others had previous experience of working in the fish plant, but were working as a teacher, a bank teller, clerical workers, a shop assistant and a manager of the gas station. Seven of these women were married to fishers. Through participant observation fieldwork, I was able to get at the local views that have so far been more or less ignored in the national discourse. Because of the particular situations in which people find themselves, these views are often ambiguous and contradictory. ICELANDIC FISHING COMMUNITIES AND THE ITQ SYSTEM The effects of the present fishing policy—the ITQ system—have varied. It is necessary to
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pay attention to the larger picture of Icelandic fishing villages and the role of the fisheries in Icelandic economy to understand the changes in a particular village, such as Eyri. Fish products account for about 80% of the export commodities and about 55% of the total export earnings of the country. The fishery is, however, not the biggest industry in Iceland. Only about 10% of the population is directly involved in the fisheries and less than 20% of the population live in fishing communities (Nordal & Kristinsson, 1996). More than half of the population of Iceland lives in the capital area. The others live in small towns and villages along the coast all around the island. There are 32 villages, with 200 to 2,000 inhabitants, that can be defined as fishing villages in Iceland. The West Fjords, the region where Eyri is located, has 10 such small fishing villages and one central town with 3,042 inhabitants (Statistical Yearbook of Iceland, 1997). Fishing villages in Iceland are usually geographically isolated. They are commonly located in fjords with little lowland, and came into being in the 19th century when proximity to good fishing grounds was much more important than it is today. Most of them developed as single enterprise villages where one company owned the main processing plant as well as some fishing vessels that provided fish for the plant. Integrating the widely dispersed fishing communities into the national economy was an important goal in Iceland in the decades following the Second World War as in other Nordic countries. Official regional policies were concerned with maintaining employment in the regional villages and small towns. One of the ways to develop the national economy was to modernize the fish industries. Loans were provided to buy trawlers, and numerous measures were taken to improve life in the villages along the coast, such as providing local services, especially in health care and education. Road construction, bridge building and assistance with building new harbors were also important in this development (B{renholdt, 1994). Even though fish is acknowledged to be the most important resource for Icelanders, in the dominant national discourse, Icelandic fishing communities are commonly looked down upon. We find negative views of fishing villages and stereotypes of fish-folk, in a similar way as in countries where the fisheries play a
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smaller role in the national economy (NadelKlein, 1991; Nadel-Klein & Davis, 1988, p. 13). The villages are often described, as culture-less entities inhabited by hardworking people who are bit on the rough side. Yet, in spite of geographical isolation, the small communities, located along the coast in Iceland, have not been underdeveloped in the past. They are neither culturally nor economically isolated. Like other northern areas they have been tied into an international economy since their settlements were formed. Today their inhabitants produce fish products for a world market with the aid of high technology fishing vessels and fish plants. In Iceland, more than any other North Atlantic fishery, we find an increased belief in market solutions along with a diminishing national support for regional development. Earlier regional development efforts have been criticized for poor results and for leading to problems, such as over-investments in fishing vessels. Great importance has been given to increasing productivity of companies in the fisheries. To ensure more productivity the goal has been set on creating larger production units in the fishery industry. The implementing of an ITQ system is an example of the application of such market solutions. Economizing and efficiency in the fishery have been emphasized in this management system. Moreover, the government maintains that the ITQ best ensures sustainable development in the fishery. A quota system was first established in 1984 as a temporary solution to problems of diminishing fish stocks and over-investment in vessels. In 1991, the system was extended and quotas became divisible and freely tradeable between vessels. One of the effects of the ITQ system is a concentration of quota shares into the hands of few large companies which now own or rent a large share of the quotas. The number of small companies holding quotas has, on the other hand, decreased dramatically (Pálsson & Helgason, 1996). One of the consequences of the ITQ system is that locally based control over the access to resources has increasingly been lost. Many small villages have not been able to adapt to this system, in particular in the West Fjords where the village of this study is located (Eythorsson, 1996). Jobs are lost when the inhabitants who hold little or no quota can no longer bring fish to land. When this happens it
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affects all other aspects of life in a fishing village. Within villages great differences have been generated among those who own quotas and those who have no quotas. Those who own quota can sell it for 10 times the price they would get for landing their catch. Many of them have chosen to sell, invest the money elsewhere, or move away. The other villagers are then left without access to fishing, with fewer jobs and with houses that cannot be sold. In the public discussion in the media there is an increasing acceptance of the differentiation created by a competitive system in which some gain and others lose. The transformations are commonly described as an historical inevitability. The minister of fishery argues that the industry as a whole is showing greater profits and is successful. However, the investment in fishing vessels has increased and, in spite of cuts in quotas, fishing has increased because of more fishing in international waters. The privatization of the fish stocks, not conservation, has been the most important goal of the ITQ system and economic efficiency its main measurement of success. It is only recently that the Icelandic media has begun to discuss the problematic fairness of the ITQ system by focusing primarily on fishers who have been forced to rent quota from owners of fish vessels. Also there has been a great discussion on the profits made by those who sell quota and whether a resource rents tax should be implemented in Iceland. On the other hand, little attention has been paid to the social effects on family and work life in small villages that have not been able to take advantage of the new system, or of locally based sustainable development.
GENDER IN ICELANDIC FISHING COMMUNITIES To understand how the current changes affect women and how they respond, it is necessary to take a look at gender relations in Icelandic fishing communities. This is important because women’s concerns reflect both their different positions in the community and their common local and gender-based identities. The diversity among women within villages reflects their position in relation to the fisheries as fishers’ wives, fish processors and as inhabitants who have jobs outside the fisheries.
Icelandic fishing communities are similar to other North Atlantic fishing communities, in that they are characterized by a clear division of labor, both in the homes and in the work places. In the fishery, men fish and women prepare men for fishing and process the catch (Davis, 1995; Gerrard, 1995; Munk-Madsen & Larsen, 1989; Skaptadóttir, 1996). The home is women’s domain and women are clearly those who run the household from day to day, whereas men work long hours at sea or on land. Thus, maritime households in Iceland can be described as women-centered (Cole, 1991). Moreover, women are usually more involved in maintaining kinship relations and relations between households than men are. Being a good housewife is part of the local identity in Icelandic fishing villages for women who hold full employment, as for those who work only part-time or are full-time housewives. However, for men, working long hours and staying away from the home constitute the more important aspects of being a real man in the local community (Skaptadóttir, 1996). Women in fishing communities are connected to the fisheries primarily as fishers’ wives and fish processors. Wives of small boat fishers are commonly involved in managing the finances of the boat. Thus they have experience of running a small business, even though they usually do not view their work as that of a manager of a small firm. Instead they refer to this work as help for the husband and as something that can easily be combined with housework. Wives of fishers on large ships, such as the freezing trawlers that go far and stay out long, have to stay alone with the children for long periods. The freezing trawlers stay out for a month at a time and the fish is processed and frozen on board by fishers. Fishers’ wives generally act as heads of household, and as is common in other maritime societies, they have the sole responsibility for the finances of the household (Cole, 1991; Hall-Arber, 1996). Before the freezing plants were established, women were seasonally involved in the processing of salted fish. Today their work in the processing plants is no longer seasonal and the plants themselves are clean, high technology factories. Women’s work as fish processors in the freezing plants is seen as boring, low-pay work that requires no special skills. Women are aware of these negative attitudes toward their work. Nevertheless, in spite of these neg-
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ative views, many women who work in fish processing express pride in being hardworking and providing for the nation (B{renholdt, 1994; Skaptadóttir, 1996). Segregation of tasks in the freezing plants is clearly gendered. There are fewer jobs within the plant that are defined as women’s jobs than as men’s jobs. Furthermore, women’s jobs are more repetitive and monotonous; they sit at the flow line all day long performing the same tasks. Men, in contrast, have jobs that allow them more chances to move around and control their own work speed. In addition, they more or less monopolize the management and maintenance work (Rafnsdóttir & Skaptadóttir, 1997). This division of labor within a freezing plant is premised on gender-based inequalities, as can be seen when the pattern is broken and women take on men’s work and vice versa. Women exude pride when they perform men’s jobs either in the freezing plant or at sea. By contrast, when men perform work defined as women’s they talk about it as a humiliating experience. A similar division of labor is described by Munk-Madsen and Larsen (1989) based on their research in northern Norway. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for women to combine jobs in the fishery with housework. To be able to leave when a husband was home from the sea, or when a child was sick, used to be an important advantage praised by women in the past (Skaptadóttir, 1996). In the 1990s, management no longer accepted this. Instead, foreign women (at present mostly from Poland), who come without their families, are hired on temporary 6- to 12-month contracts to work in the fish processing plants alongside the Icelandic women. Employers praise Polish workers for their willingness to work long hours and for never missing a day because of sick children or a husband home from the sea. However, the foreigners are the first to lose their work contract when there is little work in the plants, as their contract is limited to a particular firm. Sometimes they can get transferred to other villages to do the same work. The local women who have husbands with jobs and in houses that cannot be sold in times of crisis cannot as easily move. It is hard to draw up a single profile of women in fishing villages. Women are not only fishers’ wives or fish processors, although these positions contribute greatly to the local definitions of womanhood and of the popular images of women
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in fishing communities. Some women are both fishers’ wives and fish processors; others are neither. The greatest number of women are involved with the fishery in the ways described above but there are also other jobs for women, such as working in daycare centers and shops, cleaning workplaces or assisting older people. They may also be housewives married to local men who are not fishers. However, independent of their work they share a common identity as members of a fishing community. IMPLICATIONS OF THE ECONOMIC CHANGES IN EYRI Eyri is a village that depends almost entirely on the fisheries as other villages in the West Fjords. Current changes have had various effects in Eyri. The main effect is that access of fishers to the sea resource has drastically diminished. When examining how these changes have affected women in Eyri it is important to keep in mind the differences among them. For example, the wives of small boat fishers are affected in a different way than those married to men on freezing trawlers. Those who most feel these changes are fish-plant workers. However, in spite of these differences, the women emphasized their common identity as women in a fishing community and de-emphasized the differences found among them. Eyri is located in a narrow fjord with little lowland and with houses built close to each other on the side of a mountain overlooking the fjord. It has 374 inhabitants and is an average-sized village for the West Fjords (Statistical Yearbook of Iceland, 1997). Eyri is a single enterprise village operated by one most dominant company, which runs the freezing plant, a bone-meal processing plant, one of two grocery stores, and the only gas station. The company has for decades been partly owned by the municipality, by the local cooperative and shareholders. At the gas station there is a small video rental, which also serves fast food. This is an important meeting place for young and old. The new swimming pool with its hot tubs is also a popular place to sit and chat. Besides informal (and unannounced) visits to friends and relatives, the inhabitants socialize in the local church choir, the women’s association, and the local rescue team. Other places for informal meeting and gossip in the village are the grocery store and the handicraft center.
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The community is close-knit and everyone knows everyone else. The workplaces, the two shops, the childcare and the school are within walking distance from each other. The main company owned and ran two trawlers before the quota system came into effect. However, with increased cuts in total allowable catch by the Ministry of Fishery it did not have a large enough quota to keep the trawlers active. The company was therefore forced to sell one of its trawlers, as it could not afford to rent quota from others. This, the villagers said, was done in an attempt to rescue the company from becoming bankrupt. The ship was sold to a larger company in a nearby town in West Fjords, but four of the crewmembers were able to keep their position on the ship. As the other trawler did not have enough quota volume to sustain fishing throughout the year, it was turned into a freezing trawler in 1994 and most of its quota was leased out to other companies. According to the villagers, this was not only done to profit or out of free will, as is assumed by the ITQ model where everyone is supposed to benefit, but out of necessity, and as the only solution to keep some work in the village. With the freezing trawler, it is possible to catch fish outside the quotacontrolled area in international waters. The freezing trawler was at the time of field work very important for the village economy, as it provided relatively high-income jobs for eight to nine fishers in the village. Other villagers also benefited, as maintenance work was done in the village in between tours, and the provisions were provided by the local store (women’s work place). Thus the villagers saw the freezing trawler as important for continued habitation of the village. It gave relatively high income for fishers and their families but it took work away from women, as fish was processed on the trawler and no other vessel was available to provide raw material for the freezing plant, the main work place for women. Apart from the large trawlers, smaller individually owned vessels have been important for the fishery in Eyri. Small boat fishers have until this decade fished seasonally in the nearby fishing grounds. However, in 1990, the small boats (from 6 to 10 tons) were partly included in the quota system. The small boat fishers were no longer able to fish as much as before because of cuts in total allowable catches in the country. They could partly stay
outside of the quota system, as they could choose to take effort quotas. Effort quotas allowed fishers to go out during certain days of the year and fish as much as they could. This was risky, since the days permitted to fish could turn up when the weather was too bad to go out, and often fishers had to sit home when the weather was good. Because of the poor situation of the local company, they often brought their catch into other nearby village. What made their insecurity even more severe was that temporary jobs, to be combined with seasonal fishing, were no longer to be found in the village. The catch in Eyri slowly diminished, by about 40% between 1984 and 1993 and again by about 40% from 1994 to 1995. Cod, the most important fish for processing, diminished by 80% from 1984 to 1995 (Fisheries Association of Iceland, 1996, p. 267). Consequently all the workers in the freezing plant and all other employees of the company were laid off and were unemployed in the winter of 1996 and 1997. In the early summer of 1997, a man who runs a plant in a nearby village re-opened the plant and began processing fish bought from Russian trawlers. He re-hired most of the unemployed and also brought in Polish workers who had originally been hired in his other plant. The villagers in Eyri, as well as others in the West Fjords, blamed the bad situation on the ITQ system and claimed to have been against it from the beginning. They in part blamed themselves for their present situation. A woman in her mid-50s who has worked in the fishery for decades and is married to a small boat fisherman said about the situation: Everything is going down here as a result of the quota system. Or maybe there is no more fish. The managers here did not want to adjust to the system. They, as others in the West Fjords, did not want the quota system and did not take advantage of it. We are now facing the consequences of being so stubborn.
Many of those interviewed said that they did not think that uncaught fish in the sea should or could become private property. They believed that the quota system that came into effect in 1984 was a temporary solution (as maintained by many politicians at the time) and that quota would not be transferable. In their opinion, the ITQ system was absurd and
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immoral, since the fish resource is a common property of the nation by law. In fact, the emphasis on the fish resource as a common property of the nation was greatly emphasized in the national discourse, especially around the “cod wars,” when Icelanders extended their fishery limits to 200 miles. The people of Eyri maintained that they, as a small village, were too small to take advantage of the system. Moreover, they could not afford to rent expensive quota from others or buy quota to begin fishing again. Many people resented the manipulation of the system for profit only. Some people said that the quota should have been given not just to boat-owners but should have been tied to communities. They emphasized that they agreed with conservation efforts but not with being gradually forced to give up their livelihood. They claimed that the West Fjords were becoming more and more marginalized and increasingly abandoned by the state authorities. The village women Women were affected in various ways by the economic crisis in the village, because of their diverse relation to the fisheries and as members of a community that depends on the fisheries. The lack of quota in the village affected the wives of small boat fishers differently than those married to men on the freezing trawler. The women in households with small boats faced increased economic insecurity and losses in their roles in the day-to-day running of the boat. The wives of men on trawlers had higher income than before, but their husbands were away for much longer than previously. Before the trawler was changed into a freezing trawler the men used to stay away for 1 week to 10 days at a time and then come home regularly, but only for a couple of days. The freezing trawler stayed out for about a month with short stops in between and when the men took two tours in a row they were away for 2 months. They then took a month off to be able to stay home. Most of the women, both those married to the fishers and others, did not like the freezing trawlers and pointed out the adverse effects of long tours on family life and on the well-being of the fishers themselves. As the freezing plant was the largest employer of women in Eyri, its problems affected women most directly. The laying off in the company caused a great deal of tension and
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feeling of insecurity. Women argued that this was not just because they feared losing their jobs but because they could not envision a continued existence of the village without the plant. Before the plant was closed, most of them said that they believed something would come up to rescue the company and the village. Moreover, they maintained that although work conditions had been greatly improved in the freezing plant in the last years, the insecurity and distress was creating bad work spirit and negativity among the workers. The women of the freezing plant resented their employers for not keeping them or other villagers updated on the situation as it concerned not only them, but also the future possibilities of the village. The workers heard in the community that re-organization was being planned, and that the company was trying to link up and cooperate with other companies in the fishing sector in the region. It was only after a few women approached the manager and demanded an explanatory meeting that a 15minute meeting was held in their coffee room. After the meeting the women claimed they did not know much more about the situation except that discussion with other companies was going on and that they would be able to work for 2 more months. In the following months the workers received no concrete information from the company but heard on the news and from village gossip that plans to re-open the plant were going on. In early fall, a couple of women organized a team of 10 workers to meet and discuss the situation and what could be done to get the fish plant re-opened. One of the women, a skipper’s wife, became an informal leader and functioned in many instances as the spokeswoman of this group. They held a meeting in the freezing plant with the manager of the company, but he could not give any clear answers to their questions. They sent a fax to all the members of the Parliament representing the West Fjords inviting them to a meeting about the situation of Eyri to be held January 7th. The politicians did not respond to the invitation but advertised a meeting to be held 2 days earlier, as if it had been their own idea. After this, the team met only once, and the women interviewed in this study said that they no longer saw any purpose in this effort as no results were in sight. By this time people were less optimistic and some families left to search for jobs elsewhere.
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Some women continued their efforts but started to focus more on activities within the village. A number of the unemployed women, and active members of the women’s association, arranged to have an open house for the unemployed once a week. They offered the house recently bought by the women’s association for the meetings and made coffee and cakes for those who attended. The main purpose of these gatherings was to discuss the situation. However, the organizers complained that instead of discussing solutions and planning ahead, people only complained and gossiped. Soon the municipality began to organize courses for the unemployed. They opened the carpentry room of the school twice a week and provided an instructor. This course was the most popular amongst the women and the majority of them participated. The unemployed men did not participate in the courses to the same extent as women did, with the exception of a computer course and a course on machine maintenance, where the men were in the majority. The changes in the village affected both women and men. The main differences in women’s and men’s responses, however, were that women reacted more collectively and men more on an individual basis. This was reflected in the way men and women talked about the crisis. Men spoke primarily about their individual problems and about employment opportunities for themselves. Women in contrast emphasized the common interests of villagers independent of their occupations. Even when they were talking about losing their jobs in the freezing plant they pointed out how bad this would be for the continued existence of the village. They emphasized how all the different aspects of village life were more or less directly related to the fisheries and argued that those not directly involved in the fisheries were nevertheless affected as members of the community. A woman who had a clerical job said of the situation: “The uncertainty is bound to create insecurity among fish plant workers. But it naturally has consequences for everyone else as here everything revolves around the fishery. When the fishing diminishes everything else is affected.” Many women talked about belonging to a fishing community independent of how connected they were to the fishery itself. They de-emphasized the diversities found among them, such as those based on age, class and occupation. Instead they stressed the cohe-
siveness of villagers and talked about the villagers being like one family where everyone takes care of everyone else. Consequently, women were responsible for organizing collective action and developing new adaptive strategies to cope with the situation. Women’s adaptive strategy: The handicraft center An example of women’s collective adaptive strategies was their establishment of a handicraft center. The handicraft center in Eyri was partially initiated with assistance by an economist hired on a 3-year development project in the West Fjords. It was an effort aimed at helping women in small fishing communities create employment opportunities for themselves. This has now been running for more than 3 years with high participation of mostly women and three men. Compared to other handicraft centers in rural Iceland, the women of Eyri have been unusually active in inviting artists to give courses and to go elsewhere to educate themselves. They produce handmade crafts, preferring local materials and design, and sell them to Icelandic and foreign tourists during the summer months. The women knit wool sweaters and mittens, make dolls (that are named after the area), make handbags and jewelry from fish skin, work with clay, weave baskets and do wood carving, among other things. The time and energy spent on making handicrafts varies among members. Some knit in front of the television and others have their own workrooms especially for their handicrafts. In Eyri, as in most small villages in Iceland, there is a long tradition of women sewing clothes and knitting sweaters and mittens for family members, as store-bought clothes have not always been easily available. A few of the women had been making crafts for sale before the handicraft center was established. One of them had been knitting hats and selling locally and in shops in the capital. For most of the women, being a member of the handicraft center is primarily a way to be able to sell their products and supplement the household income. Not all the women participate in the meetings or other social activities organized by the handicraft center. However, for most of the women the social aspect of participating plays an important part in their membership. When I asked a member of the handicraft center about the role of the center in the commu-
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nity, she said, “For people in such a small village it is important to stick together. Participating in the handicraft center gives you a feeling of belonging and a chance to socialize.” They argue that the social activities related to the center are not only important for them as individuals but also play a vital role in keeping their community viable. In their marketing strategy, women emphasize their particular locally based culture in contrast to the rest of the world. They simultaneously see their way of life as distinct from but part of Icelandic culture. Many of the women active in the handicraft center say they want to express their particular culture and locality with their work. They use natural materials and emphasize the closeness of fishing communities to the resources of nature. Thus, they use such material as fish skin to signify that they belong to a fishing community and their woodcarvings and quilts often depict fishery-related themes. In addition, the handicraft center serves as a tourist information center for the village and surrounding area. Thus women play a greater role in the presentation of the village to outsiders than men do. In this way they play an important part in the making and re-interpretation of local culture. In spite of the emphasis on local roots, the women do not all make crafts which are necessarily Icelandic or from the area. Some make clothes and furniture for Barbie dolls, paint on bed sheets with Walt Disney figures copied from coloring books, cross-stitch pictures from magazines or patchwork wall hangings and blankets influenced by American country living magazines. In the designing of patchwork quilts one, however, often finds fishery-related themes, such as fish or boats. It is important, they say, to have such things for the locals to buy as gifts or to use in their own homes. In fact most of the participants were proud to show me how they used locally made handicrafts to decorate their homes. In the emergent production and marketing of handicrafts one can find both continuity and change. In their adaptive strategies women are applying their knowledge of sewing and knitting. Besides making clothes for family members, women have been making handicrafts to give to family and friends for several years. As members of the women’s association, they have made low-priced handicrafts for fundraising efforts in order to support community
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projects, or to help those in need. They continue to make things for the women’s association but they are also doing something new and different. They are making new things, sold for much higher prices, to make extra income for themselves, thus linking home and work in a new way. To be able to do this they are making an effort to change their own and other people’s attitudes towards handmade things. For example, they explain to buyers how much work is involved in making each product. Some of the women in Eyri have been successful and can hardly produce enough to keep up with the demand for their products. In spite of this, they are not willing to enlarge their enterprises to be able to produce more. The women emphasize the importance of keeping the design, production and sale of their products in their own hands and not becoming cheap producers for others. Each product is marked with the name of the handicraft center and the name of the individual producer. Both men and women in Eyri emphasize aspects from their local history, which are important for their identity. This can also be seen in postcards that are sold in the handicraft center and at the gas station. One of these postcards shows village life in the past and the other, the most recent pride of the village, the sports hall. They have also recently published a small book with photos of earlier generations of inhabitants and short stories about villagers from earlier in this century. The aerial photographs of the village and paintings of local landscapes and pictures of local ships and boats found in homes and institutions shows that the village itself is an important unit. The villagers commonly express pride in their local fishery-related history and landscape. There are, however, important gendered differences in this regard, as these views are more common among women and they organize collectively on a grassroots level. For example, the different groups of women who participate in the handicraft center play down the differences amongst themselves. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION As a result of increasing emphasis on market solutions, such as the individually transferable quota system (which the Icelandic government argues is the most economic and most likely to
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conserve resources), great changes are occurring in small, Icelandic, fishing villages. I have presented a case study of a village, which is at present considered to be too small a productive unit to be economical. It is a village that, like many other small villages, has had problems with adjusting to the new system in which fewer and larger companies are taking over the quota in the Icelandic fisheries. The current ITQ system has encouraged the investment in freezing trawlers and has made it hard for small boat fishers to continue with their fishing. In the discussion of the current fishery policy there has been very little discussion regarding the effects on small communities or on family or gender relations within them. In this article, I have given an example of one village in order to show the different aspects that have to be taken into account when examining the effects of these changes on women and their responses. It is not only fishers who experience the consequences but also the women in the community. Both men’s and women’s work positions are insecure. Men have reacted to the crisis more or less on an individual level whereas women have acted collectively. Although women are affected by the economic crisis in the village in various ways they emphasize their common interests. Of their collective efforts the handicraft center has been most successful. They see the handicraft center as a way of strengthening their economic situation as well as their cultural identity as members of a fishing community. The solutions the women have sought to create jobs in handicrafts can only lead to fulltime jobs for a few of them. For the others this is merely an activity that can be combined with another job and contributes to the variety in employment they say is missing from the village. The handicraft center can in no way replace the jobs that are being lost. Although the inhabitants are interested in building up tourism in the area they still primarily see themselves as members of a fishing village, a village that in the long run cannot exist without the fishery. In their attempts to develop tourism they emphasize this background in the fishery, in spite of the negative views towards fishing villages so far, portraying them as entities without culture. The local responses can be looked upon as women’s efforts to survive. However, one thing is clear: Both village women and men are
marginalized as actors in the Icelandic fisheries and their active resistance to the changes is still mostly in the form of defense. In their defense strategy they attempt to redefine local culture and history. This has to do with the capitalization and centralization in the fishery economy and not only the resource crisis. The changes described above are the results of a planned development accepted by the majority of the industry and most of the Icelandic politicians. Efficiency and profit seem to be the overarching principles. The changes discussed in this article and the responses to them can only be understood in the light of the process of globalization in which the language of the market has become dominant. Simultaneously, with growing tourism, there is increasingly a shared understanding of what local culture is all about. Thus, the emphasis on cultural distinctiveness in a small village like Eyri is a global phenomenon in which marginalized populations emphasize their local identities in terms of local “culture” in an attempt to survive.
REFERENCES B{renholdt, Jorgen Ole. (1994). Culture, modes of life and settlement structures in the north Atlantic. In Lars Lindquist & Lars Olof Persson (Eds.), NordREFO 1994, 1 (pp. 163–176). Copenhagen, Denmark: Nordic Institute of Regional Policy Research. Binkley, Marian. (1995). Lost mornings: Offshore fishing families coping with the fisheries crisis. Dalhouise Law Journal, 18(1), 84–95. Cole, Sally. (1991). Women of the Praia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davis, Dona. (1995). Women in an uncertain age: Crisis and change in Newfoundland community. In Carmelita McGarth, Barbara Neis, & Marilyn Porter (Eds.), Their lives and times: Women in Newfoundland and Labrador, a collage (pp. 279–295). St. John’s, Newfoundland: Killick Press. Eythorsson, Einar. (1996). Coastal communities and ITQ management. The case of Icelandic fisheries. Sociolologica Ruralis, 36, 212–223. Fisheries Association of Iceland. (1996). Utvegur 1995. Reykjavik: Fiskifélag Islands. Gerrard, Siri. (1995). When women take the lead: Changing conditions for women’s activities, roles and knowledge in North Norwegian fishing communities. Social Science Information, 34, 593–631. Hall-Arber, Madeleine. (1996). Hear me speak: Italian and Portuguese women facing the fishery crisis. Anthropologica, XXXVIII, 221–348. Moore, Henrietta L. (1993). The difference within and the difference between. In Teresa del Valle (Ed.), Gendered anthropology (pp. 193–204). London: Routledge.
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Munk-Madsen, Eva, & Larsen, Marit. (1989). Kjonsmyter med konsekvenser. En analyse av arbejdsdeling mellom menn og kvinner i industriell fiskefordeling til lands og til vanns. NFFR-rapport I. [Gender myths with consequences: An analysis of the division of labor between men and women in industrial fishery on land and at sea]. Tromso, Norway: Norges Fiskerihogskole. Nadel-Klein, Jane. (1991). Reweaving the fringe: Localism, tradition, and representation in British ethnography. American Ethnologist, 18, 500–517. Nadel-Klein, Jane, & Davis, Dona L. (Eds.). (1988). To work and to weep: Women in fishing economies (Social and Economic Papers No. 18. Institute of Social and Economic Research). St. Johns, Newfoundland: Memorial University of Newfoundland. Neis, Barbara. (1995). Doing time on the protest line: Women’s political culture, politics and collective action in outport Newfoundland. In Carmelita McGarth, Barbara Neis, & Marilyn Porter (Eds.), Their lives and times: Women in Newfoundland and Labrador, a collage (pp. 296–309). St. John’s Newfoundland: Killick Press. Nordal, Johannes, & Kristinsson, Valdimar. (Eds.). (1996). Iceland: The republic. Reykjavík, Iceland: The Central Bank of Iceland. Pálsson, Gísli, & Helgason, Agnar. (1996). Figuring fish and measuring men: The individual transferable quota
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system in the Icelandic cod fishery. Ocean and Coastal Management, 28(1–3), 117–146. Pratt, Geraldine, & Hanson, Susan. (1994). Geography and the construction of difference. Gender, Place and Culture: Journal of Feminist Geography, 1, 5–29. Rafnsdóttir, Guobjörg Linda, & Skaptadóttir, Unnur Dís. (1997). Arbetsnorm, kön och kunskap inom fiskeriet [Work-norms, gender and knowledge in the fishery]. Sociologisk Forskning, 34(3), 46–58. Scott, Joan W. (1988). Gender and the politics of history. New York: Columbia University Press. Scott, Joan W. (1992). Experience. In Judith Butler & Joan W. Scott (Eds.), Feminists theorize the political (pp. 22– 40). London: Routledge. Skaptadóttir, Unnur Dís. (1996). Housework and wage work: Gendered division of labor in modern Icelandic fishing communities. In Gísli Pálsson & Paul Durrenberger (Eds.), Images of contemporary Iceland. Everyday lives and global contexts (pp. 87–105). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press. Smith, Dorothy. (1987). Everyday world as a problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Statistical Yearbook of Iceland. (1997). Reykjavík, Iceland: Hagstofa Íslands. Weedon, Chris. (1987). Feminist practice and post-structuralist theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Pergamon
PII S0277-5395(00)00089-3
WOMEN COPING WITH CHANGE IN AN ICELANDIC FISHING COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Science, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
Synopsis — In Iceland we find great commitment to market solutions in the fishery as exemplified by the individually transferable quota system (ITQ). This management system, along with the state’s diminishing commitment to regional planning, have had marked impact on the people who live in fishing communities. In this article, I explore some of the consequences of these changes on women’s lives within a particular fishing village. The inhabitants of the village have not been able to take advantage of the new system in which fewer and larger companies are taking over. The inhabitants are consequently faced with the process of increased marginalization that presents new challenges to which men and women respond differently. The coping mechanisms adopted by women stress community and working together whereas men respond more on an individual level. The already existing gender divisions within fishing communities underpin the different responses and coping strategies. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Presently, great transformations are taking place in fishing policies and in regulation of access to marine resources in Iceland. During the 1990s, the establishment of the individually transferable quota system (ITQ), which made fishing quotas freely tradeable between vessels, has had a marked impact on the people who live in fishing communities all around Iceland. According to this system of resource management only those who own or can afford to rent quota shares are allowed to catch fish. The media as well as researchers have for the most part focused on changes affecting fishers, fishery enterprises and the fishing industry as a whole. New market relations, commitment to market solutions and diminishing commitment of the state to regional planning have brought gains to some and losses to others. Yet the Icelandic national discourse hardly mentions the effects of current changes in small villages, particularly on women. In this article, I ex-
This research has been generously funded by the Icelandic Research Council and the University of Iceland. I would like to thank my research assistant Hulda Proppé for her help and Siri Gerrard, Dona L. Davis, Ásdís Jónsdóttir, Annadís Gréta Rúdólfsóttir and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on this article.
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plore some of the consequences of these changes on women’s lives within Eyri (pseudonym), a single, small, Icelandic, fishing village. The inhabitants of Eyri have not been able to take advantage of the new system in which fewer and larger companies are taking over. This is a case study of what happens in small villages when access to fishing is lost due to a new resource management system. The inhabitants of Eyri are consequently faced with the process of increased marginalization that presents new challenges to which men and women respond differently. The coping mechanisms adopted by women stress community and working together whereas men respond more on an individual level. The already existing gender divisions within fishing communities underpin the different responses. For example, in Eyri and similar communities, men have been fishers and have been in control of local politics and the local fish industry, whereas women have been in charge of fish processing and of maintaining family and kinship ties. Before turning attention to the village of Eyri, I briefly examine the Icelandic fisheries and fishing policies, focusing on the ITQs, to better understand the larger picture of which the village is a part. Then I depict some impor-
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tant aspects of gender relations in Icelandic fishing communities. This sheds light on how women’s and men’s experiences of and responses to the current crisis in Eyri link into construction of femininity and masculinity. ANALYTICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH Over the last decade stereotypes of women in fishing economies and communities have been challenged and more realistic views of their social and economic contributions and positions have been offered. Women’s responses to recent changes in a variety of North Atlantic settings have also been examined (Binkley, 1995; Gerrard, 1995; Neis, 1995). Nadel-Klein and Davis (1988), in their edited volume on women in the fisheries, warned against the tendency to over-emphasize the similarities found in women’s lives in fishing communities. They argued “that to understand fishing communities and economies, the adaptive challenges of fishing must be placed within the specific context of history, political economy and gender ideology” (p. 6). Other feminist anthropologists (e.g., Moore, 1993) have also emphasized issues of diversity, stressing not only the differences between men and women, but also the differences among women themselves. This study approaches gender from a social constructionist viewpoint (Scott, 1992; Smith, 1987; Weedon, 1987). The discourses of knowledge circulating in society are not only structured by the social and economic conditions in which women find themselves, but also shape women’s understanding and experiences of their social circumstances. In spite of a current emphasis on other aspects in identity construction, such as class and age, gender plays a large role in forming people’s identities and in defining their position in society. Gender is an important part of economic life, politics as well as the households. As Scott (1988) has pointed out, “gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (p. 42). Including other aspects of identity construction such as age and class can help us depict the diversities found among women. An analysis of the social construction of gender, which takes into account diversities among women and men, can help us avoid the creation of new static categories of
women (Pratt & Hanson, 1994). Approaching gender in this way when examining the changes in a fishing village gives a better estimation of the effects of various economic changes on women’s lives and the different responses of men and women. The different groups of women in a small fishing community are affected in various ways. They, however, respond collectively to the crisis and play down the diversities among themselves and focus on common interests. In this sense their identities are not just based on their relation to the fisheries as fishers’ wives or fish processors but also on location, as those belonging to a particular community. This is an element that has been growing stronger at a time of crisis (Skaptadóttir, 1996). The field research upon which this article is based was conducted in the village of Eyri in the summers of 1996 and 1997. It is part of a larger study on women’s lives in fishing communities, which also includes a larger village in the West Fjords. Interviews were conducted with 14 women and 4 men in the village, some of them repeatedly. Important information was also gained from informal discussions with those interviewed and other members, both men and women, of the community. In the semi-structured interviews the women were asked about the various effects of the recent changes on their lives and encouraged to talk about their responses to the crisis experienced in the community. The women were in the age range from 20 to 55 years and most of them had lived in the village or its vicinity for most of their adult lives. Six of the 14 women were fish-plant workers; the fish plant hires the greatest number of women in the village. The others had previous experience of working in the fish plant, but were working as a teacher, a bank teller, clerical workers, a shop assistant and a manager of the gas station. Seven of these women were married to fishers. Through participant observation fieldwork, I was able to get at the local views that have so far been more or less ignored in the national discourse. Because of the particular situations in which people find themselves, these views are often ambiguous and contradictory. ICELANDIC FISHING COMMUNITIES AND THE ITQ SYSTEM The effects of the present fishing policy—the ITQ system—have varied. It is necessary to
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pay attention to the larger picture of Icelandic fishing villages and the role of the fisheries in Icelandic economy to understand the changes in a particular village, such as Eyri. Fish products account for about 80% of the export commodities and about 55% of the total export earnings of the country. The fishery is, however, not the biggest industry in Iceland. Only about 10% of the population is directly involved in the fisheries and less than 20% of the population live in fishing communities (Nordal & Kristinsson, 1996). More than half of the population of Iceland lives in the capital area. The others live in small towns and villages along the coast all around the island. There are 32 villages, with 200 to 2,000 inhabitants, that can be defined as fishing villages in Iceland. The West Fjords, the region where Eyri is located, has 10 such small fishing villages and one central town with 3,042 inhabitants (Statistical Yearbook of Iceland, 1997). Fishing villages in Iceland are usually geographically isolated. They are commonly located in fjords with little lowland, and came into being in the 19th century when proximity to good fishing grounds was much more important than it is today. Most of them developed as single enterprise villages where one company owned the main processing plant as well as some fishing vessels that provided fish for the plant. Integrating the widely dispersed fishing communities into the national economy was an important goal in Iceland in the decades following the Second World War as in other Nordic countries. Official regional policies were concerned with maintaining employment in the regional villages and small towns. One of the ways to develop the national economy was to modernize the fish industries. Loans were provided to buy trawlers, and numerous measures were taken to improve life in the villages along the coast, such as providing local services, especially in health care and education. Road construction, bridge building and assistance with building new harbors were also important in this development (B{renholdt, 1994). Even though fish is acknowledged to be the most important resource for Icelanders, in the dominant national discourse, Icelandic fishing communities are commonly looked down upon. We find negative views of fishing villages and stereotypes of fish-folk, in a similar way as in countries where the fisheries play a
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smaller role in the national economy (NadelKlein, 1991; Nadel-Klein & Davis, 1988, p. 13). The villages are often described, as culture-less entities inhabited by hardworking people who are bit on the rough side. Yet, in spite of geographical isolation, the small communities, located along the coast in Iceland, have not been underdeveloped in the past. They are neither culturally nor economically isolated. Like other northern areas they have been tied into an international economy since their settlements were formed. Today their inhabitants produce fish products for a world market with the aid of high technology fishing vessels and fish plants. In Iceland, more than any other North Atlantic fishery, we find an increased belief in market solutions along with a diminishing national support for regional development. Earlier regional development efforts have been criticized for poor results and for leading to problems, such as over-investments in fishing vessels. Great importance has been given to increasing productivity of companies in the fisheries. To ensure more productivity the goal has been set on creating larger production units in the fishery industry. The implementing of an ITQ system is an example of the application of such market solutions. Economizing and efficiency in the fishery have been emphasized in this management system. Moreover, the government maintains that the ITQ best ensures sustainable development in the fishery. A quota system was first established in 1984 as a temporary solution to problems of diminishing fish stocks and over-investment in vessels. In 1991, the system was extended and quotas became divisible and freely tradeable between vessels. One of the effects of the ITQ system is a concentration of quota shares into the hands of few large companies which now own or rent a large share of the quotas. The number of small companies holding quotas has, on the other hand, decreased dramatically (Pálsson & Helgason, 1996). One of the consequences of the ITQ system is that locally based control over the access to resources has increasingly been lost. Many small villages have not been able to adapt to this system, in particular in the West Fjords where the village of this study is located (Eythorsson, 1996). Jobs are lost when the inhabitants who hold little or no quota can no longer bring fish to land. When this happens it
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affects all other aspects of life in a fishing village. Within villages great differences have been generated among those who own quotas and those who have no quotas. Those who own quota can sell it for 10 times the price they would get for landing their catch. Many of them have chosen to sell, invest the money elsewhere, or move away. The other villagers are then left without access to fishing, with fewer jobs and with houses that cannot be sold. In the public discussion in the media there is an increasing acceptance of the differentiation created by a competitive system in which some gain and others lose. The transformations are commonly described as an historical inevitability. The minister of fishery argues that the industry as a whole is showing greater profits and is successful. However, the investment in fishing vessels has increased and, in spite of cuts in quotas, fishing has increased because of more fishing in international waters. The privatization of the fish stocks, not conservation, has been the most important goal of the ITQ system and economic efficiency its main measurement of success. It is only recently that the Icelandic media has begun to discuss the problematic fairness of the ITQ system by focusing primarily on fishers who have been forced to rent quota from owners of fish vessels. Also there has been a great discussion on the profits made by those who sell quota and whether a resource rents tax should be implemented in Iceland. On the other hand, little attention has been paid to the social effects on family and work life in small villages that have not been able to take advantage of the new system, or of locally based sustainable development.
GENDER IN ICELANDIC FISHING COMMUNITIES To understand how the current changes affect women and how they respond, it is necessary to take a look at gender relations in Icelandic fishing communities. This is important because women’s concerns reflect both their different positions in the community and their common local and gender-based identities. The diversity among women within villages reflects their position in relation to the fisheries as fishers’ wives, fish processors and as inhabitants who have jobs outside the fisheries.
Icelandic fishing communities are similar to other North Atlantic fishing communities, in that they are characterized by a clear division of labor, both in the homes and in the work places. In the fishery, men fish and women prepare men for fishing and process the catch (Davis, 1995; Gerrard, 1995; Munk-Madsen & Larsen, 1989; Skaptadóttir, 1996). The home is women’s domain and women are clearly those who run the household from day to day, whereas men work long hours at sea or on land. Thus, maritime households in Iceland can be described as women-centered (Cole, 1991). Moreover, women are usually more involved in maintaining kinship relations and relations between households than men are. Being a good housewife is part of the local identity in Icelandic fishing villages for women who hold full employment, as for those who work only part-time or are full-time housewives. However, for men, working long hours and staying away from the home constitute the more important aspects of being a real man in the local community (Skaptadóttir, 1996). Women in fishing communities are connected to the fisheries primarily as fishers’ wives and fish processors. Wives of small boat fishers are commonly involved in managing the finances of the boat. Thus they have experience of running a small business, even though they usually do not view their work as that of a manager of a small firm. Instead they refer to this work as help for the husband and as something that can easily be combined with housework. Wives of fishers on large ships, such as the freezing trawlers that go far and stay out long, have to stay alone with the children for long periods. The freezing trawlers stay out for a month at a time and the fish is processed and frozen on board by fishers. Fishers’ wives generally act as heads of household, and as is common in other maritime societies, they have the sole responsibility for the finances of the household (Cole, 1991; Hall-Arber, 1996). Before the freezing plants were established, women were seasonally involved in the processing of salted fish. Today their work in the processing plants is no longer seasonal and the plants themselves are clean, high technology factories. Women’s work as fish processors in the freezing plants is seen as boring, low-pay work that requires no special skills. Women are aware of these negative attitudes toward their work. Nevertheless, in spite of these neg-
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ative views, many women who work in fish processing express pride in being hardworking and providing for the nation (B{renholdt, 1994; Skaptadóttir, 1996). Segregation of tasks in the freezing plants is clearly gendered. There are fewer jobs within the plant that are defined as women’s jobs than as men’s jobs. Furthermore, women’s jobs are more repetitive and monotonous; they sit at the flow line all day long performing the same tasks. Men, in contrast, have jobs that allow them more chances to move around and control their own work speed. In addition, they more or less monopolize the management and maintenance work (Rafnsdóttir & Skaptadóttir, 1997). This division of labor within a freezing plant is premised on gender-based inequalities, as can be seen when the pattern is broken and women take on men’s work and vice versa. Women exude pride when they perform men’s jobs either in the freezing plant or at sea. By contrast, when men perform work defined as women’s they talk about it as a humiliating experience. A similar division of labor is described by Munk-Madsen and Larsen (1989) based on their research in northern Norway. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for women to combine jobs in the fishery with housework. To be able to leave when a husband was home from the sea, or when a child was sick, used to be an important advantage praised by women in the past (Skaptadóttir, 1996). In the 1990s, management no longer accepted this. Instead, foreign women (at present mostly from Poland), who come without their families, are hired on temporary 6- to 12-month contracts to work in the fish processing plants alongside the Icelandic women. Employers praise Polish workers for their willingness to work long hours and for never missing a day because of sick children or a husband home from the sea. However, the foreigners are the first to lose their work contract when there is little work in the plants, as their contract is limited to a particular firm. Sometimes they can get transferred to other villages to do the same work. The local women who have husbands with jobs and in houses that cannot be sold in times of crisis cannot as easily move. It is hard to draw up a single profile of women in fishing villages. Women are not only fishers’ wives or fish processors, although these positions contribute greatly to the local definitions of womanhood and of the popular images of women
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in fishing communities. Some women are both fishers’ wives and fish processors; others are neither. The greatest number of women are involved with the fishery in the ways described above but there are also other jobs for women, such as working in daycare centers and shops, cleaning workplaces or assisting older people. They may also be housewives married to local men who are not fishers. However, independent of their work they share a common identity as members of a fishing community. IMPLICATIONS OF THE ECONOMIC CHANGES IN EYRI Eyri is a village that depends almost entirely on the fisheries as other villages in the West Fjords. Current changes have had various effects in Eyri. The main effect is that access of fishers to the sea resource has drastically diminished. When examining how these changes have affected women in Eyri it is important to keep in mind the differences among them. For example, the wives of small boat fishers are affected in a different way than those married to men on freezing trawlers. Those who most feel these changes are fish-plant workers. However, in spite of these differences, the women emphasized their common identity as women in a fishing community and de-emphasized the differences found among them. Eyri is located in a narrow fjord with little lowland and with houses built close to each other on the side of a mountain overlooking the fjord. It has 374 inhabitants and is an average-sized village for the West Fjords (Statistical Yearbook of Iceland, 1997). Eyri is a single enterprise village operated by one most dominant company, which runs the freezing plant, a bone-meal processing plant, one of two grocery stores, and the only gas station. The company has for decades been partly owned by the municipality, by the local cooperative and shareholders. At the gas station there is a small video rental, which also serves fast food. This is an important meeting place for young and old. The new swimming pool with its hot tubs is also a popular place to sit and chat. Besides informal (and unannounced) visits to friends and relatives, the inhabitants socialize in the local church choir, the women’s association, and the local rescue team. Other places for informal meeting and gossip in the village are the grocery store and the handicraft center.
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The community is close-knit and everyone knows everyone else. The workplaces, the two shops, the childcare and the school are within walking distance from each other. The main company owned and ran two trawlers before the quota system came into effect. However, with increased cuts in total allowable catch by the Ministry of Fishery it did not have a large enough quota to keep the trawlers active. The company was therefore forced to sell one of its trawlers, as it could not afford to rent quota from others. This, the villagers said, was done in an attempt to rescue the company from becoming bankrupt. The ship was sold to a larger company in a nearby town in West Fjords, but four of the crewmembers were able to keep their position on the ship. As the other trawler did not have enough quota volume to sustain fishing throughout the year, it was turned into a freezing trawler in 1994 and most of its quota was leased out to other companies. According to the villagers, this was not only done to profit or out of free will, as is assumed by the ITQ model where everyone is supposed to benefit, but out of necessity, and as the only solution to keep some work in the village. With the freezing trawler, it is possible to catch fish outside the quotacontrolled area in international waters. The freezing trawler was at the time of field work very important for the village economy, as it provided relatively high-income jobs for eight to nine fishers in the village. Other villagers also benefited, as maintenance work was done in the village in between tours, and the provisions were provided by the local store (women’s work place). Thus the villagers saw the freezing trawler as important for continued habitation of the village. It gave relatively high income for fishers and their families but it took work away from women, as fish was processed on the trawler and no other vessel was available to provide raw material for the freezing plant, the main work place for women. Apart from the large trawlers, smaller individually owned vessels have been important for the fishery in Eyri. Small boat fishers have until this decade fished seasonally in the nearby fishing grounds. However, in 1990, the small boats (from 6 to 10 tons) were partly included in the quota system. The small boat fishers were no longer able to fish as much as before because of cuts in total allowable catches in the country. They could partly stay
outside of the quota system, as they could choose to take effort quotas. Effort quotas allowed fishers to go out during certain days of the year and fish as much as they could. This was risky, since the days permitted to fish could turn up when the weather was too bad to go out, and often fishers had to sit home when the weather was good. Because of the poor situation of the local company, they often brought their catch into other nearby village. What made their insecurity even more severe was that temporary jobs, to be combined with seasonal fishing, were no longer to be found in the village. The catch in Eyri slowly diminished, by about 40% between 1984 and 1993 and again by about 40% from 1994 to 1995. Cod, the most important fish for processing, diminished by 80% from 1984 to 1995 (Fisheries Association of Iceland, 1996, p. 267). Consequently all the workers in the freezing plant and all other employees of the company were laid off and were unemployed in the winter of 1996 and 1997. In the early summer of 1997, a man who runs a plant in a nearby village re-opened the plant and began processing fish bought from Russian trawlers. He re-hired most of the unemployed and also brought in Polish workers who had originally been hired in his other plant. The villagers in Eyri, as well as others in the West Fjords, blamed the bad situation on the ITQ system and claimed to have been against it from the beginning. They in part blamed themselves for their present situation. A woman in her mid-50s who has worked in the fishery for decades and is married to a small boat fisherman said about the situation: Everything is going down here as a result of the quota system. Or maybe there is no more fish. The managers here did not want to adjust to the system. They, as others in the West Fjords, did not want the quota system and did not take advantage of it. We are now facing the consequences of being so stubborn.
Many of those interviewed said that they did not think that uncaught fish in the sea should or could become private property. They believed that the quota system that came into effect in 1984 was a temporary solution (as maintained by many politicians at the time) and that quota would not be transferable. In their opinion, the ITQ system was absurd and
Women Coping with Change
immoral, since the fish resource is a common property of the nation by law. In fact, the emphasis on the fish resource as a common property of the nation was greatly emphasized in the national discourse, especially around the “cod wars,” when Icelanders extended their fishery limits to 200 miles. The people of Eyri maintained that they, as a small village, were too small to take advantage of the system. Moreover, they could not afford to rent expensive quota from others or buy quota to begin fishing again. Many people resented the manipulation of the system for profit only. Some people said that the quota should have been given not just to boat-owners but should have been tied to communities. They emphasized that they agreed with conservation efforts but not with being gradually forced to give up their livelihood. They claimed that the West Fjords were becoming more and more marginalized and increasingly abandoned by the state authorities. The village women Women were affected in various ways by the economic crisis in the village, because of their diverse relation to the fisheries and as members of a community that depends on the fisheries. The lack of quota in the village affected the wives of small boat fishers differently than those married to men on the freezing trawler. The women in households with small boats faced increased economic insecurity and losses in their roles in the day-to-day running of the boat. The wives of men on trawlers had higher income than before, but their husbands were away for much longer than previously. Before the trawler was changed into a freezing trawler the men used to stay away for 1 week to 10 days at a time and then come home regularly, but only for a couple of days. The freezing trawler stayed out for about a month with short stops in between and when the men took two tours in a row they were away for 2 months. They then took a month off to be able to stay home. Most of the women, both those married to the fishers and others, did not like the freezing trawlers and pointed out the adverse effects of long tours on family life and on the well-being of the fishers themselves. As the freezing plant was the largest employer of women in Eyri, its problems affected women most directly. The laying off in the company caused a great deal of tension and
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feeling of insecurity. Women argued that this was not just because they feared losing their jobs but because they could not envision a continued existence of the village without the plant. Before the plant was closed, most of them said that they believed something would come up to rescue the company and the village. Moreover, they maintained that although work conditions had been greatly improved in the freezing plant in the last years, the insecurity and distress was creating bad work spirit and negativity among the workers. The women of the freezing plant resented their employers for not keeping them or other villagers updated on the situation as it concerned not only them, but also the future possibilities of the village. The workers heard in the community that re-organization was being planned, and that the company was trying to link up and cooperate with other companies in the fishing sector in the region. It was only after a few women approached the manager and demanded an explanatory meeting that a 15minute meeting was held in their coffee room. After the meeting the women claimed they did not know much more about the situation except that discussion with other companies was going on and that they would be able to work for 2 more months. In the following months the workers received no concrete information from the company but heard on the news and from village gossip that plans to re-open the plant were going on. In early fall, a couple of women organized a team of 10 workers to meet and discuss the situation and what could be done to get the fish plant re-opened. One of the women, a skipper’s wife, became an informal leader and functioned in many instances as the spokeswoman of this group. They held a meeting in the freezing plant with the manager of the company, but he could not give any clear answers to their questions. They sent a fax to all the members of the Parliament representing the West Fjords inviting them to a meeting about the situation of Eyri to be held January 7th. The politicians did not respond to the invitation but advertised a meeting to be held 2 days earlier, as if it had been their own idea. After this, the team met only once, and the women interviewed in this study said that they no longer saw any purpose in this effort as no results were in sight. By this time people were less optimistic and some families left to search for jobs elsewhere.
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Some women continued their efforts but started to focus more on activities within the village. A number of the unemployed women, and active members of the women’s association, arranged to have an open house for the unemployed once a week. They offered the house recently bought by the women’s association for the meetings and made coffee and cakes for those who attended. The main purpose of these gatherings was to discuss the situation. However, the organizers complained that instead of discussing solutions and planning ahead, people only complained and gossiped. Soon the municipality began to organize courses for the unemployed. They opened the carpentry room of the school twice a week and provided an instructor. This course was the most popular amongst the women and the majority of them participated. The unemployed men did not participate in the courses to the same extent as women did, with the exception of a computer course and a course on machine maintenance, where the men were in the majority. The changes in the village affected both women and men. The main differences in women’s and men’s responses, however, were that women reacted more collectively and men more on an individual basis. This was reflected in the way men and women talked about the crisis. Men spoke primarily about their individual problems and about employment opportunities for themselves. Women in contrast emphasized the common interests of villagers independent of their occupations. Even when they were talking about losing their jobs in the freezing plant they pointed out how bad this would be for the continued existence of the village. They emphasized how all the different aspects of village life were more or less directly related to the fisheries and argued that those not directly involved in the fisheries were nevertheless affected as members of the community. A woman who had a clerical job said of the situation: “The uncertainty is bound to create insecurity among fish plant workers. But it naturally has consequences for everyone else as here everything revolves around the fishery. When the fishing diminishes everything else is affected.” Many women talked about belonging to a fishing community independent of how connected they were to the fishery itself. They de-emphasized the diversities found among them, such as those based on age, class and occupation. Instead they stressed the cohe-
siveness of villagers and talked about the villagers being like one family where everyone takes care of everyone else. Consequently, women were responsible for organizing collective action and developing new adaptive strategies to cope with the situation. Women’s adaptive strategy: The handicraft center An example of women’s collective adaptive strategies was their establishment of a handicraft center. The handicraft center in Eyri was partially initiated with assistance by an economist hired on a 3-year development project in the West Fjords. It was an effort aimed at helping women in small fishing communities create employment opportunities for themselves. This has now been running for more than 3 years with high participation of mostly women and three men. Compared to other handicraft centers in rural Iceland, the women of Eyri have been unusually active in inviting artists to give courses and to go elsewhere to educate themselves. They produce handmade crafts, preferring local materials and design, and sell them to Icelandic and foreign tourists during the summer months. The women knit wool sweaters and mittens, make dolls (that are named after the area), make handbags and jewelry from fish skin, work with clay, weave baskets and do wood carving, among other things. The time and energy spent on making handicrafts varies among members. Some knit in front of the television and others have their own workrooms especially for their handicrafts. In Eyri, as in most small villages in Iceland, there is a long tradition of women sewing clothes and knitting sweaters and mittens for family members, as store-bought clothes have not always been easily available. A few of the women had been making crafts for sale before the handicraft center was established. One of them had been knitting hats and selling locally and in shops in the capital. For most of the women, being a member of the handicraft center is primarily a way to be able to sell their products and supplement the household income. Not all the women participate in the meetings or other social activities organized by the handicraft center. However, for most of the women the social aspect of participating plays an important part in their membership. When I asked a member of the handicraft center about the role of the center in the commu-
Women Coping with Change
nity, she said, “For people in such a small village it is important to stick together. Participating in the handicraft center gives you a feeling of belonging and a chance to socialize.” They argue that the social activities related to the center are not only important for them as individuals but also play a vital role in keeping their community viable. In their marketing strategy, women emphasize their particular locally based culture in contrast to the rest of the world. They simultaneously see their way of life as distinct from but part of Icelandic culture. Many of the women active in the handicraft center say they want to express their particular culture and locality with their work. They use natural materials and emphasize the closeness of fishing communities to the resources of nature. Thus, they use such material as fish skin to signify that they belong to a fishing community and their woodcarvings and quilts often depict fishery-related themes. In addition, the handicraft center serves as a tourist information center for the village and surrounding area. Thus women play a greater role in the presentation of the village to outsiders than men do. In this way they play an important part in the making and re-interpretation of local culture. In spite of the emphasis on local roots, the women do not all make crafts which are necessarily Icelandic or from the area. Some make clothes and furniture for Barbie dolls, paint on bed sheets with Walt Disney figures copied from coloring books, cross-stitch pictures from magazines or patchwork wall hangings and blankets influenced by American country living magazines. In the designing of patchwork quilts one, however, often finds fishery-related themes, such as fish or boats. It is important, they say, to have such things for the locals to buy as gifts or to use in their own homes. In fact most of the participants were proud to show me how they used locally made handicrafts to decorate their homes. In the emergent production and marketing of handicrafts one can find both continuity and change. In their adaptive strategies women are applying their knowledge of sewing and knitting. Besides making clothes for family members, women have been making handicrafts to give to family and friends for several years. As members of the women’s association, they have made low-priced handicrafts for fundraising efforts in order to support community
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projects, or to help those in need. They continue to make things for the women’s association but they are also doing something new and different. They are making new things, sold for much higher prices, to make extra income for themselves, thus linking home and work in a new way. To be able to do this they are making an effort to change their own and other people’s attitudes towards handmade things. For example, they explain to buyers how much work is involved in making each product. Some of the women in Eyri have been successful and can hardly produce enough to keep up with the demand for their products. In spite of this, they are not willing to enlarge their enterprises to be able to produce more. The women emphasize the importance of keeping the design, production and sale of their products in their own hands and not becoming cheap producers for others. Each product is marked with the name of the handicraft center and the name of the individual producer. Both men and women in Eyri emphasize aspects from their local history, which are important for their identity. This can also be seen in postcards that are sold in the handicraft center and at the gas station. One of these postcards shows village life in the past and the other, the most recent pride of the village, the sports hall. They have also recently published a small book with photos of earlier generations of inhabitants and short stories about villagers from earlier in this century. The aerial photographs of the village and paintings of local landscapes and pictures of local ships and boats found in homes and institutions shows that the village itself is an important unit. The villagers commonly express pride in their local fishery-related history and landscape. There are, however, important gendered differences in this regard, as these views are more common among women and they organize collectively on a grassroots level. For example, the different groups of women who participate in the handicraft center play down the differences amongst themselves. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION As a result of increasing emphasis on market solutions, such as the individually transferable quota system (which the Icelandic government argues is the most economic and most likely to
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conserve resources), great changes are occurring in small, Icelandic, fishing villages. I have presented a case study of a village, which is at present considered to be too small a productive unit to be economical. It is a village that, like many other small villages, has had problems with adjusting to the new system in which fewer and larger companies are taking over the quota in the Icelandic fisheries. The current ITQ system has encouraged the investment in freezing trawlers and has made it hard for small boat fishers to continue with their fishing. In the discussion of the current fishery policy there has been very little discussion regarding the effects on small communities or on family or gender relations within them. In this article, I have given an example of one village in order to show the different aspects that have to be taken into account when examining the effects of these changes on women and their responses. It is not only fishers who experience the consequences but also the women in the community. Both men’s and women’s work positions are insecure. Men have reacted to the crisis more or less on an individual level whereas women have acted collectively. Although women are affected by the economic crisis in the village in various ways they emphasize their common interests. Of their collective efforts the handicraft center has been most successful. They see the handicraft center as a way of strengthening their economic situation as well as their cultural identity as members of a fishing community. The solutions the women have sought to create jobs in handicrafts can only lead to fulltime jobs for a few of them. For the others this is merely an activity that can be combined with another job and contributes to the variety in employment they say is missing from the village. The handicraft center can in no way replace the jobs that are being lost. Although the inhabitants are interested in building up tourism in the area they still primarily see themselves as members of a fishing village, a village that in the long run cannot exist without the fishery. In their attempts to develop tourism they emphasize this background in the fishery, in spite of the negative views towards fishing villages so far, portraying them as entities without culture. The local responses can be looked upon as women’s efforts to survive. However, one thing is clear: Both village women and men are
marginalized as actors in the Icelandic fisheries and their active resistance to the changes is still mostly in the form of defense. In their defense strategy they attempt to redefine local culture and history. This has to do with the capitalization and centralization in the fishery economy and not only the resource crisis. The changes described above are the results of a planned development accepted by the majority of the industry and most of the Icelandic politicians. Efficiency and profit seem to be the overarching principles. The changes discussed in this article and the responses to them can only be understood in the light of the process of globalization in which the language of the market has become dominant. Simultaneously, with growing tourism, there is increasingly a shared understanding of what local culture is all about. Thus, the emphasis on cultural distinctiveness in a small village like Eyri is a global phenomenon in which marginalized populations emphasize their local identities in terms of local “culture” in an attempt to survive.
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