Icelandic Fisher Women's Experience: Implications, Social Change, and Fisheries Policy

ABSTRACT

Icelandic women have been a part of the Icelandic fishing fleet since before the seventeenth century and continue to hold positions at all levels of the fishing industry. This appears to be different from any other group of female fishers about whom a study has been done in the industrialized world. This article examines the role of these women and how multiple factors such as social change, fisheries policy, technology, mobility, and economics – including Iceland's 2008 dramatic economic crash – are affecting these women's ability and desire to fish. This article demonstrates the importance and implications of a gendered perspective when considering the effects of fisheries policy, practice, and any potential for sustainable fisheries that includes diverse factors including communities, economics, social change, and the natural environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Iceland
• gender
• fisheries
• equality
• communities
• policy

Acknowledgements

Generous funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research made the fieldwork possible for this article. I also thank all the fisher women and others who participated in this research, Ágústa Flosadóttir and Birna Gunnlaugsdóttir for their generous hospitality and insight, Helga Tryggvadóttir for compiling the statistical data, and the staff of both the Icelandic Seafarer and Vessel Registry Administration and the Nautical School for their time and assistance. I would further like to thank the members and organizers of the Icelandic Meltdown Conference and an anonymous reviewer of this journal for their insightful suggestions and comments.