Abstract:

Fishing in the sea is one of the high-risk occupations due to the long hours of work in the harsh and unpredictable weather of cold, heat, wet and windy, and the difficulty of reaching the shore when emergencies arise. Recent cyclone Ockhi in December 2017 killed more than 500 fishermen in the South Indian Sea and created havoc in their lives of many fishing families; however, every day thousands of fishermen go to the sea for their livelihood, risking their lives and placing their families at risk. In view of this, the objective of this ethnographic study was to explore the lifestyle of the deep-sea fishermen in terms of their existential struggles and the cause of their poverty. Specifically, the study focused on the perennial poverty and the existential worldview of the people mainly: realities of life struggles, meaning of life and death situations, examination of their work culture, customs and rituals, the patterns of thinking and ideas, beliefs, behaviour and knowledge. The study concludes some unique existential worldview, unconventional concepts of life and death and their preference for economic needs over survival and safety needs as defining factors of many of their life struggles. It was also identified that it is not the earnings, but poor budgeting that perpetuates them in poverty. The negligence of government’s labour wellbeing measures makes them one of the poorly organized workforces in India.

Keywords: Fishermen Problems, Existential Worldview, High-risk Occupation, Fishing and Economy.

References:

[1].     Benner, D. G., & Hill, P. C. (1999). (Eds). Baker, Encyclopaedia of Psychology & Counselling, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

[2].     Brocki, J. & Wearden, A. (2006). A critical evaluation of the use of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in health psychology, Psychology and Health, 21 (1) 87-108.

[3].     Chestney, N. (2012, September 6.). Bottom trawling wrecking ocean floor - study finds, CS Monitor.

[4].     Endter-Wada, J. & Keenan, S. (2005). Adaptations by Long-Term Commercial Fishing Families in the California Bight: Coping with Changing Coastal Ecological and Social Systems. Human Organization, 64 (3) 225–237.

[5].     Martin, M. (1994). Deep sea fishing in India is already a flop. Interview with Kochery, retrieved from www.downtoearth.org.in/interviews/deep-sea-fishing-in-india-is-already-a-flop-31904.

[6].     McClenachan, L. & Kittinger, J. (2013). Multi-century trends and the sustainability of coral reef fisheries in Hawaii and Florida. Fish and Fisheries, 14 (3) 239-255.

[7].     Ministry of Agriculture (2012), Marine Fisheries Census – Part 1, CMFRI, Kochi.

[8].     Pietkiewicz, I. & Smith, J. A. (2012) A practical guide to interpretive phenomenological analysis in qualitative research in psychology. Psychological Journal, 18 (2) 361-369.

[9].     Smith, J. A., & Osborn, M. (2008). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. In J. Smith, Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods (pp. 53-80). London: Sage.

[10]. Sood, J. & Bhaskar, U. (2017, March 07). Fishermen may get deep sea vessels to go to exclusive economic zone, Mint E-paper. Retrieved from http://epaper.livemint.com/epaper/viewer.aspx#.

[11]. Srinivasan, M. (2017, July 7). Sri Lanka bans bottom-trawling, The Hindu, pp7.

[12]. The Gazette of India (2017). Fisheries Profile of INDIA, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Retrieved from http://dahd.nic.in/about-us/divisions/fisheries.