Contextualities of gender in Eritrean immigrant households: Exploring empowerment through integration in Norwegian society

The article presents a contextual understanding of immigration and integration in Norwegian society from a gender perspective by capturing the experiences of Eritrean immigrant households when adapting to social change and an unfamiliar gender regime. Theories of empowerment and social integration are used to interpret the gender dimensions, and to examine Eritrean families’ post-migration gender relations and the interaction between conventional and egalitarian norms in expectations regarding the roles and social participation of women and men. A qualitative research design was used, involving in-depth interviews, participant observation, and informal discussions. The findings revealed that Eritrean immigrants’ gender relations in Norwegian society were dynamic, due to the opportunities and constraints they faced in the private and public spheres. Women’s ability to challenge patriarchal power relations was due to their adoption of Norwegian mainstream norms that determined their agency and empowerment in society. Also, social inclusion for Eritrean immigrants wes often dependent on social networks that aided their integration into society and was differentiated by gender. The authors conclude that the realities of women’s empowerment were heterogeneous and subjectively influenced by male gender ideologies, relevant education and language skills, access to desirable social networks, satisfactory paid work, and decisive welfare regulations.publishedVersio

Market women’s skills, constraints, and agency in supplying affordable, safe, and high-quality fish in Ghana

In Ghana, the role of female informal traders (“market women”) in making low-cost smoked and dried fish available in urban and rural marketplaces is the key to explaining the high consumption of fish in the country. However, market women’s contribution to food security and nutrition (FSN), as well as to fish quality and safety is underrated and poorly understood. Fish marketing requires proficient distribution and preservation skills, economic and sociocultural competence, and a high degree of mobility. Fish traders face numerous constraints related to fish supplies, credit access, hygiene, storage facilities, transport, and market governance, all of which affect their incomes and may affect the quality and safety of fish. The article, which is based on semi-structured interviews with fish traders and fish consumers in coastal and inland markets in Ghana, documents how traders operate and exhibit agency to deal with constraints by activating a range of skills in their profit-making and their fish quality and safety enhancement strategies. The authors argue that policies grounded in knowledge about fish traders’ activities, skills, and working conditions, with budgets that prioritize investment in public infrastructure that caters for market women’s professional and personal needs, can further enhance their ability to supply affordable, safe, and high-quality fish to Ghana’s population.publishedVersio

Power theories in political ecology

Power plays a key role in definitions of political ecology. Likewise, empirical studies within this field tend to provide detailed presentations of various uses of power, involving corporate and conservation interventions influencing access to land and natural resources. The results include struggle and conflict. Yet, there is a lack of theoretical elaboration showing how power may be understood in political ecology. In this article, we start to fill this gap by reviewing the different theoretical perspectives on power that have dominated this field. There are combinations of influences, two of them being actor-oriented and neo-Marxist approaches used from the 1980s. Typically, case studies are presented of environmental interventions by a broad range of actors at various scales from the local to the global. The focus has been on processes involving actors behind these interventions, as well as the outcomes for different social groups. Over the last two decades, in political ecology we have increasingly seen a move in power perspectives towards poststructuralist thinking about "discursive power", inspired by Foucault. Today, the three approaches (actor-oriented, neo-Marxist and Foucauldian) and their combinations form a synergy of power perspectives that provide a set of rich and nuanced insights into how power is manifested in environmental conflicts and governance. We argue that combining power perspectives is one of political ecology's strengths, which should be nurtured through a continuous examination of a broad spectrum of social science theories on power

Anchovy powder enrichment in brown rice-based instant cereal: a process optimization study using Response Surface Methodology (RSM)

There is a need for expanding the utilization of small fish as they constitute an undervalued and important source of protein and micronutrients in many developing countries suffering from micronutrient deficiencies. One way to increase consumption and health benefits is to add nutrient-rich fish meal into staple food ingredients. In this study, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied to optimize the processing of an instant rice-based cereal enriched with anchovy powder. The Box-Behnken design was used to study the effect of principal processing variables (drying temperature, drum rotation speed, and slurry solids concentration) on product water activity, color, bulk density, and water solubility index. Viscosity, consistency, and cohesiveness of the reconstitute cereal were also evaluated. Empirical models were developed to describe the relationship between independent and dependent variables and showed regression coefficients (R2) ranging between 71% and 98%. Higher drying temperatures resulted in reduced water activity, darker product color, and lower consistency. While drum speed influenced (p < .05) product color and water-binding capacity, bulk density, and consistency of the reconstituted product was associated with slurry solids concentration. Optimal processing conditions obtained from the study were temperature of 130°C, drum speed of 9.3 rpm, and solids concentration of 20.5%. These conditions would be useful in the production of brown rice-based instant cereal enriched with anchovy powder with desired quality properties.publishedVersio

Locally-procured fish is essential in school feeding programmes in sub-Saharan Africa

Fish make an important contribution to micronutrient intake, long-chained polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFAS), and animal protein, as well as ensuring food and nutrition security and livelihoods for fishing communities. Micronutrient deficiencies are persistent in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), contributing to public health issues not only in the first 1000 days but throughout adolescence and into adulthood. School feeding programs (SFPs) and home-grown school feeding programs (HGSF), which source foods from local producers, particularly fisherfolk, offer an entry point for encouraging healthy diets and delivering essential macro- and micronutrients to schoolchildren, which are important for the continued cognitive development of children and adolescents and can contribute to the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs) 1, 2, 3, 5, and 14. The importance of HGSF for poverty alleviation (SDG1) and zero hunger (SDG 2) have been recognized by the United Nations Hunger Task Force and the African Union Development Agency–New Partnership for African Development (AUDA-NEPAD), which formulated a strategy for HGSF to improve nutrition for the growing youth population across Africa. A scoping review was conducted to understand the lessons learned from SFPs, which included fish and fish products from small-scale producers, identifying the challenges and best practices for the inclusion of fish, opportunities for improvements across the supply chain, and gaps in nutritional requirements for schoolchildren which could be improved through the inclusion of fish. Challenges to the inclusion fish in SFPs include food safety, supply and access to raw materials, organizational capacity, and cost, while good practices include the engagement of various stakeholders in creating and testing fish products, and repurposing fisheries by-products or using underutilized species to ensure cost-effective solutions. This study builds evidence of the inclusion of nutritious fish and fish products in SFPs, highlighting the need to replicate and scale good practices to ensure sustainable, community-centred, and demand-driven solutions for alleviating poverty, malnutrition, and contributing to greater health and wellbeing in adolescence.publishedVersio

The processing, preparation, and cooking practices of small fish among poor Ghanaian households: An exploratory qualitative study

Small fish are an important part of the diet in Ghana, but malnutrition rates remain high. The nutritional quality of fish consumed in Ghana may be affected by food processing and cooking practices, but the extent to which these processes are practiced among poor Ghanaian households along the coastal belt is unknown. This study explored how poor Ghanaian households process, prepare, and cook meals containing small fish. This exploratory qualitative study used Attride-Stirling thematic network analysis. Respondents were purposively sampled from fishing communities in the coastal regions of Ghana. One-on-one interviews were performed by trained field assistants, audio recorded and videotaped, and transcribed for further data analysis. The most common small fish species identified were anchovies and herrings. Anchovies were fried and eaten whole. Herrings were eaten either smoked or fresh; for fresh herring, the head, fins, and viscera were removed before boiling. Herrings were smoked with the head and viscera; however, both the head and viscera were removed before being added to boiling soup and were not consumed. Anchovies were fried for 10 min, and herrings were boiled for 15–30 min. Processing methods and further meal preparation depend on the small fish species. Nutrient composition and contribution of small fish depend on the processing method, preparation method, and what tissues are eaten. Thus, these results will be of importance for sampling schemes for food composition tables and for the calculation of nutrient intake from small fish.publishedVersio

Networks, distance and trust: Telecommunications and changing trading practices in Ghana

Ghana liberalized its telecom sector in 1995. This study looks at the impact of the phenomenal growth in access to telephones on the business practices of traders in cloth, fish and agricultural produce. The article examines how the use of telecommunication technology reduces traders’ time and transportation costs, and explores its impact on initiation and maintenance of relationships of trust in trade networks. It is argued that with a tool for more efficient communication over long distances, transportation and transaction costs are reduced. The quality of the services that traders provide and the profit they make thus improves