Experience and Resilience

Hello again from Barbados! As I write this, the rain is pounding the roof so hard that it sounds as if you’ve put your head under a small waterfall, or put on a very loud surround-sound white noise machine. We are in the beginning of a tropical depression that should last a week or longer (so I am told by my housemate, an aspiring pilot and meteorologist at the University of the West Indies (UWI)).

It has been a busy few weeks, much of it marked by trying new Bajan and Caribbean foods.

Learning to cut breadfruit!

A brief list includes: grilled marlin, spicy fish cakes and ketchup, fried fish cutters (sandwiches), lamb roti, saltfish, stewed breadfruit, and Bajan dumpling soup. I also acquired a pair of goggles and have been visiting beaches to swim through clouds of brightly colored reef fish.

In addition to these recreational pursuits, I have continued my conversations with fisherfolk and government officials around the island to get a better understanding of the most pressing issues facing the fishing industry in Barbados. Thanks to the amazing help of Ms. Maria Pena, researcher and lecturer at UWI, I have also been able to attend sessions of their popular theater group for women in the fishing industry. Headed by Maria and Michelle Barrow, an educator and theater development professional, this group is practicing popular theater as a tool to be wielded by women in the fishing industry.

What is popular theater? I had never heard of it before my first zoom call with Maria, which took place while I was still in Washington DC, sick with COVID and quarantined in my room. Paraphrasing from Michelle, popular theater is the use of art (broadly defined as drawing, skits, storytelling, poetry, song -- anything that communicates ideas in a creative way) to share experiences, raise issues, and examine all of this further from the perspective of the community being impacted. It includes not only the actual performance, but also the dialogue that follows. Popular theater is also a venue for communicating information to a wider community, in ways that are entertaining and rooted in community. The creativity of expression is entirely directed by the performers, and these women are working on performances for fish markets and other community spaces where they hope to be heard and encourage more open dialogue about these issues.

For those who may not know, I am completely inept at performance art. This is not polite modesty, but harsh fact. Despite this, I have had such fun participating in these sessions. The ladies have an infectious sense of humor and ease, swapping gossip, stories, and gardening tips between activities. They encourage each other (and me) after each trial performance, finding meaning in every line and launching into discussions where they raise serious issues and existential questions about the future of their industry. Their art speaks of the stigma of fish smell, back issues from standing in the processing hall all day, childcare and domestic labor, rising prices, and falling catches. With specific issues, Michelle guides the group to use art to pick apart cause and effect, and envision where the community needs to go from here. Why is this meaningful? What could a solution look like? Who needs to hear this, and speak out themselves?

A small fishing boat at Pile Bay.

The conversations always take the group to surprising and rich places. One of the group members told us the story of her father’s career as a fisherman which began when he was 13 years old and fishing from sailboats. As a child, she watched her father repair his boat, doing everything himself except the most technical electrical work. He did the books on Thursday evenings, and invested in spare parts and materials for the vessel when money came in from the high season. Maintenance of his boat was slow, expensive, and completely DIY. Nowadays, she said, boat owners (men and women) and fishermen (almost all men) struggle to maintain their vessels properly. Materials are outrageously expensive, and many younger fishermen lack the skills to do their own repairs well, which leaves them to hire expensive servicemen or try to figure it out as best they can. Many also lack the training to balance the books through highly variable fishing seasons like her father did, and that financial stress often lands on families. Through her story she remembered her father’s life, and worried about the futures of many younger men headed into a changing industry without the help and skills they require to succeed.

An abandoned fishing vessel docked at the Bridgetown market. Boats are abandoned when the repair expenses get too high, and there are many at every pier as they are too expensive to remove.

Major problems facing fisherwomen in Barbados

(or some of them, anyway!)

Climate Change… enter Sargassum!

It is an often-repeated piece of wisdom in environmental fields that climate change hits already vulnerable populations first, and hardest. Barbadian working women with precarious, seasonal incomes certainly fall into this category of disproportionate impact. Climate change (and all of its spiraling tentacles of cause and effect) is changing the ecology of the Caribbean Sea, which in turn changes the species makeup, size, and seasonality of the catch. Flying fish are likely impacted by the massive influx of sargassum that has been pummeling the coast of Barbados and other Caribbean island nations in the last ten years.

Piled Sargassum on the East coast.

Sargassum is a free-floating macroalgae that occurs naturally in the southern Atlantic ocean. It plays an essential role in the pelagic ecosystem, serving as a safe haven for spawning fish, sea turtles, and other creatures. Starting in 2011 however, vast mats of sargassum began washing up on the beaches of Barbados and neighboring islands. It piles up and begins to rot, releasing noxious fumes and smothering nearshore reefs. The exact drivers are still being investigated, but likely a combination of warming waters and shifting currents, combined with an increased seed population (an after-effect of earlier blooms) is to blame. This is a huge deal for the flying fish industry, as it not only drives away the fish but also impedes the nets and motors instrumental in harvesting it. Many have expressed that flying fish, which typically makes up 60% of the island’s annual catch, is a dying industry. Given that flying fish processing is a historically significant and formerly very lucrative industry employing primarily women, this is one of the distinctly gendered issues facing Barbados.

More Sargassum gums up a pier.

This, in combination with other climate-driven and anthropogenic pressures on the fisheries have resulted in massive instability in the catch. People have talked about how new species like the Amber fish are coming into Bajan nets, Mahi Mahi and other species are much smaller than they used to be, and sometimes there just isn't really much fish at all. New fish can be good, palettes are not that easy to shift. I have been assured that Amberfish are really tasty, but customers like what they like. The loss of flying fish can’t be swapped out for a new set of species overnight, especially as it’s the national symbol AND the national dish of Barbados.

Social Protection and the State

Instability and precarity is very difficult to manage. Fisherfolk rely on a combination of official programs provided by the state in the form of unemployment insurance and pensions, and social support in the form of family and other networks that may give or lend money and resources. Both forms of social protection are crucial, but there are limits.

In terms of aid from the government, many ladies that I have spoken with have expressed that the National Insurance Scheme of Barbados does not help fisherfolk, despite their mandatory contributions. This is a big area of activism and public discourse at the moment, as the government is seeking to reform the pension system. More on this later!

Social networks are integral to the job of fish boners, processors, and sellers (as I discussed in my last post), but economic shocks like COVID stress the ability of many people to give. Many folks I talked to expressed that COVID was very disruptive to their finances and patterns of work, as lockdowns around the island decreased the availability of fish and customers. Some women I talked to at the Oistins Fish market recalled losing business during lockdown, and having to bone fish at home. The smell of the fish was stressful for their family members to deal with. However, no experience is ever universal - one lady at the Bridgetown fish market told me she liked working in lockdown. There was no “hassling and haggling”, she said. Everyone knew exactly what to do and they worked fast, running bags of processed fish out to customers in their cars.

Natural Disasters - the world is unpredictable

The 2021 eruption of the La Soufrière volcano in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines darkened the sky over Barbados with ash, which then fell all over the ground. Open-air fish markets were sullied with a layer of ash, and one lady at Oistins recalled cleaning her station for days by hand to get everything back to a sanitary condition so she could sell again.

A storm sweeps past in Black Rock, seen from my porch.

Opportunity outside of fishing?

In the longer term, instability in the industry is worrisome for many women due to the limited opportunities to diversify their income. Lower catches means less work, an issue that is especially pressing in the flying fish processing business where the declines have been dramatic. Factors like education, work experience, and age can limit opportunity for other careers. Many men and women I have spoken to say that they want to stay in the industry - many came here because of family members who were fishers, or for an opportunity to work independently. Three fishermen have now told me that they were “born on the beach”, literally born into the role. Whether or not this is factually true doesn’t matter: the point is very clear. The fisherfolk who I have met through the popular theater sessions want training and infrastructure to open up possibilities for value-added products like fish burgers, fish fingers, and smoked or salted fish. If they can have a business that extends beyond the seasonal and unreliable processing hall, that would increase their financial security. Imported and processed food is very expensive here (a box of US-brand cereal can easily cost $10 USD), the argument for local food seafood processing seems like an extremely salient one to me - though I am not an economist or an expert in these things!

Stigma

Fuel, ice, and other essentials are getting more expensive, which raises the price of fish coming off the boats. Post-harvest workers then have to turn it around and sell it for more money to customers, which means that they are the face of a lot of stress, grumbling, and even anger from customers. Given how many women have told me that social connection is the best part of the job, it's no wonder that daily hostility can weigh on them. The popular theater group brings this up a lot: the feeling of being blamed for a chain reaction that stretches far, far beyond them. They also talk about the stigma of fish smell, getting looks on buses coming home from a long day of work. These types of issues were not something I gave a lot of thought to before coming here, which is a blind spot I will monitor going forward.

This has been a very long post filled with lots of ideas. I apologize for the lack of a clear thesis, but I am trying my best to lean into the openness of Watson and reject specificity in favor of openness. I am so inspired by the women working to advance the cause of economic and social justice in this rapidly changing industry. They are amazing, and we should all be paying attention!!

That's all for now!

Grace