Stuck Between ‘the Rock’ and a Hard Place: Re-imagining Rural Newfoundland Feminine Subjectivities Beyond the Global Imaginary and Rural Crisis

There has been a growing body of research exploring the mobility experiences of rural youth as they migrate in search of work, education and leisure. In this paper we contribute to this body of knowledge by examining the mobility experiences of young women (16-24 years) living on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, Canada. In contrast to dominant constructions of rural crisis that position out of the way places as in decline, dying or dead, we argue that the young women in our study articulated complex, affective relations to place. In so doing they negotiated localized histories, prevailing social relations, broader discursive constructions and embodied affective connections in forging their emplaced feminine subjectivities. We argue that foregrounding the complex and at times contradictory relationships that the young women articulated with their rural homes is an important step in prying open dominant albeit constraining constructions of the rural, thereby allowing for alternative and more inhabitable imaginings of out of the way places

Re-Inscribing Gender Relations through Employment-Related Geographical Mobility: The Case of Newfoundland Youth in Resource Extraction

Despite the popular representation of the masculine hero migrant (Ni Laoire, 2001), rural youth scholars have found that young men are more likely to stay on in their communities, while young women tend to be more mobile, leaving for education and better employment opportunities elsewhere (Corbett, 2007b; Lowe, 2015). Taking a spatialized approach (Farrugia, Smyth & Harrison, 2014), we contribute to and extend the rural youth studies scholarship on gender, mobilities and place by considering the case of young Newfoundlanders’ geographical mobilities in relation to male-dominated resource extraction industries. We draw on findings from two SSHRC-funded research projects, the Rural Youth and Recovery project, a subcomponent of the Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance (CURRA) and the Youth, Apprenticeship and Mobility project, a subcomponent of the On the Move Partnershi We argue that the spatial coding of gender relations in rural Newfoundland makes certain kinds of mobilities more intelligible and possible for young men, while constraining women’s. In other words, gender relations of rural places are “stretched out” (Farrugia et al., 2014) across space through the mobility practices of young men and women in relation to work in skilled trades and resource extraction industries. These “stretched out” gender relations are reproduced by the organisation of a sector that relies on a mobile workforce free from care and domestic work and familiar with manual work

How to account for sex and gender in occupational health and safety research: are mixed methods the answer?

OHS research has tended to measure the impact of occupational exposures and ergonomic interventions on male bodies and in a limited range of male-dominated occupations. To correct for this, researchers are encouraged to account for sex and gender in health research. It is not clear however how researchers should go about doing this. Taking OHS literature as a case study, in this paper, we argue that while mixed methods approaches alone do not produce analyses of sex or gender that move beyond reproducing binary comparisons or essentializing difference, combined with critical theoretical frameworks that engage in dialogic analysis, mixed methods have the potential to offer a complex and sophisticated understanding of the relationship between sex and/gender and OHS

Opportunities for and challenges of occupational pluralism in seasonal fisheries: Regional cases from Atlantic Canada

This report presents the findings from the Atlantic Canada case studies component of the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters’ (CCPFH) national study entitled Fisheries Seasonality and the Allocation of Labour and Skills Labour Market Information, which was funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. The Atlantic Canada case studies were coordinated by the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL)-based Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board and carried out by Memorial University researchers Dr. Paul Foley (School of Science and Environment, Grenfell Campus), Dr. Barbara Neis (Sociology) and Dr. Nicole Power (Sociology), with help from Research Assistants Christine Knott (PhD student, Sociology) and Dr. Courtenay Parlee. The funds were administered by Memorial University and the research was carried out with support from the On the Move Partnership (www.onthemovepartnership.ca)

The Power of Mean

Review of The Mean Girl Motive: Negotiating Power and Femininity by Nicole Landry (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2008)

Occupational risks, safety and masculinity: Newfoundland fish harvesters' experiences and understandings of fishery risks

There is no single, objective place from which to assess risk, and the best way to assess and minimise risk is through seeking input from a variety of different knowledge agents focusing on different sources and dimensions of risk and using multiple methodologies. This paper draws on Wynne's work on constructivist-realism and on the feminist literature on masculinity to examine fish harvesters' understandings and experiences of risk and safety in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador on Canada's east coast. Using data drawn from focus groups, phone interviews and from individual boat tours with Newfoundland fish harvesters, it is argued that their understandings and practices of risk and safety are dynamic and that this dynamism reflects the intersection of everyday requirements to get the job done in what are often uncertain and constrained circumstances associated with the interacting and changing regulatory, industrial and environmental contexts in which this work is done. From this perspective, while quantifying fisheries risks in terms of fatality, accident or Search and Rescue incident rates is important, the inclusion of fish harvesters' experiences and related safety knowledge in research and policy-development designed to reduce risk is imperative. The view from the deck of the vessel and fish harvesters' experiences on the water not only informs their observations and interpretations of risk but offer potential insights into risk and into expert claims about risk that should be taken into account when trying to understand fishing risk and improve safety

Is there a place for youth in fisheries communities?: A multiple perspectives discussion

The workshop titled “Is there a place for youth in fisheries communities? A multiple perspectives discussion” took place on September 30, 2012, between 10 am and noon. It was organised by Nicole Power and was part of the Rebuilding Collapsed Fisheries and Threatened Communities International Symposium held at Norris Point, Newfoundland. The objectives of the workshop were to bring together stakeholder organisations, community representatives, researchers and youth to discuss the place of young people in fisheries communities and to consider multi-and inter- generational strategies for rebuilding fisheries communities. The workshop combined short presentations by CURRA researchers, an international researcher and the executive director of the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board (PFHCB) and a roundtable discussion. Other participants included local youth and community members, graduate students, researchers, and a representative from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This report aims to summarise and synthesize the discussion that took place

Women, processing industries and the environment : a sociological analysis of women fish and crab processing workers' local ecological knowledge

Resource shortages and ecological degradation have drawn attention to management systems, and the scientific knowledge on which they are based, that have failed to provide sustainable ecosystems. In the case of Newfoundland, fisheries collapses have stimulated discussions on the value and potential of the ecological knowledge of local peoples in terms of successful resource management. Until recently, Newfoundland women have been left out of this literature on local ecological knowledge. In this thesis, I explore the local ecological knowledge of women fish and crab processing workers. I work through the standpoint of women, as processing workers, mothers, and wives, in search of clues to understanding what is necessary for sustainable fisheries and sustainable communities in rural Newfoundland. Because women's work and roles in their communities and families are different from men's, their knowledge about the fishery may be different from men's. -- Fish and crab processing workers experienced tensions in their work as a consequence of such ecological changes as resource shortages and changes in the size and texture of fish in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Processing work is mediated by technologies, ownership, and managerial strategies that cure beyond the control of those employed at the plant, but help to shape workers' relationships with nature and limit sustainable practices. Women's labour process differs from men's because of the sexual division of labour in households and in fish processing plants. Their knowledge reflects their experiences in the processing plants, in the household and community. I argue that women acquire extensive knowledge about the fishery through their work, but also through their home and family lives. Working through the standpoint of women and their local ecological knowledge indicates that women are knowledgeable about fish quality, nutrition, capitalism and patriarchy in terms of resource declines. If these types of information have a gender-dimension, they would reflect the division of labour in the home and processing plants

Women and Children First: the Gendered and Generational Socialecology of Smaller-scale Fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador and Northern Norway

The resilience of small-scale fisheries in developed and developing countries has been used to provide lessons to conventional managers regarding ways to transition toward a social-ecological approach to understanding and managing fisheries. We contribute to the understanding of the relationship between management and the resilience of small-scale fisheries in developed countries by looking at these dynamics in the wake of the shock of stock collapse and fisheries closures in two contexts: Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and northern Norway. We revisit and update previous research on the gendered effects of the collapse and closure of the Newfoundland and Labrador northern cod fishery and the closure of the Norwegian cod fishery in the early 1990s and present new research on young people in fisheries communities in both contexts. We argue that post-closure fishery policy and industry responses that focused on downsizing fisheries through professionalization, the introduction of quotas, and other changes ignored the gendered and intergenerational household basis of small-scale fisheries and its relationship to resilience. Data on ongoing gender inequities within these fisheries and on largely failed recruitment of youth to these fisheries suggest they are currently at a tipping-point that, if not addressed, could lead to their virtual disappearance in the near future