Trying to Make a Living: Breton Fishers and Late Twentieth Century Capitalism

Working on Water: Introduction

“…Indeed, over the years, a significant number of articles and book reviews in the Anthropology of Work Review have dealt with studies of seafood harvesting and other water work, in particular focusing on how populations whose livelihoods have been tied economically and culturally to forms of marine life have responded to radical economic and social changes (e.g., Askins ; Gerkey ; Seeley et al ). Articles in this journal have included previous work by Charles Menzies (, , , ), who is a contributor to the current special issue. In the last few decades, along with other social scientists, a number of anthropologists have attended to the contemporary and historical impacts of ecological crises on human workers formerly reliant on specific wild seafood stocks, including the imposition of government‐mandated moratoria (e.g., Davis ), impacts of major infrastructure projects such as dams on humans’ work on river systems (e.g., Lansing et al ), the growth of aquaculture (e.g., Cruz‐Torres ; Meltzoff et al ), and interactions between coastal populations and governments with respect to sustainable resource management (Alonso Población et al ; Davis et al ; Durrenberger ; Durrenberger and King ; García Allut ; McCay ; Meltzoff ; Pita et al ).…”

Work First! Then Eat – Skipper/Crew Relations on a French Fishing Boat

“…Elsewhere I have discussed the origins of the Bigouden fishery (Menzies 1997), the economic difficulties the fishery experienced in the early 1990s (Menzies 2000), and the entwined politics of identity and survival employed by boat owners in their struggle to survive in the global market for fish and fish products (Menzies 2001). In this paper I am interested in the manner by which onboard reactions between skipper and crew interact with the productive and reproductive dynamics of small-scale capitalism in the Bigouden Fishery.…”