Exploring resilience in coastal fishing communities

Published On Fri 7 Nov 2014 by Grant Hill

The ways in which fishing communities in the developing world are coping with declining stocks, climate change and economic stresses will be examined at the University of Dundee next week.

Professor Allister McGregor, from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, will visit Dundee to describe the work he and his colleagues are carrying out in communities that rely on fishing for subsistence in Ghana, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Fiji.

The event, taking place at the Dalhousie Building at 4pm on Tuesday, 11th November is the latest Guest Lecture hosted by the University’s Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience (CECHR).

Professor John Rowan, Director of CECHR, said, “We are very excited to be welcoming Professor McGregor to the University of Dundee and to hear about the exciting project he is involved in across four diverse developing countries.

“There is a tendency in the West to talk about the developing world as if it were one homogenous entity with identical problems in need of one standardised solution but in reality there are complex issues but also incredibly innovative means of coping that can teach us a lot about resilience.”

Professor McGregor will explore the relationships between human wellbeing and resilience in coastal fishing communities under stress. The current fisheries decline and the impacts of other economic and natural shocks put tremendous pressure on these areas and these have potentially harmful consequences in terms of generating poverty, vulnerability and conflicts.

However some communities, even within the same locality do better than others in coping with shocks. The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Department for International Development, considers how three dimensions of human wellbeing (material, relational and subjective) can be used to help us understand how some fisherfolk and their communities adapt to cope with shocks.

‘Resilience and the Three Dimensions of Human Wellbeing: A Study of Coastal Fishing Communities in Ghana, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Fiji’ takes place at the Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill, from 4pm on Tuesday, 11th November.

Free places can be reserved at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cechr-guest-lecture-resilience-and-the-three-dimensions-of-human-wellbeing-a-study-of-coastal-tickets-13572895897 or by calling 01382 388692.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
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E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
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