Abstract

The pelagic four-winged flying fish accounts for almost two-thirds of all fish landings in Barbados (Fisheries Division, 2004). In the post-harvest sub-sector, this species is almost exclusively processed by women. A recent reduction in the abundance of flying fish linked to global warming thus had a negative impact on the work of many women fisherfolk. Together with other economic factors, including rising cost of living, this reduction made their livelihoods uncertain and insecure. State-provided social protection was insufficient to shield them from the adverse impacts. Using a explorative and qualitative research design, I explored how women fisherfolk working in the post-harvest fishing sub-sector in Barbados experienced these challenges, as well as the informal social protection systems - that is, traditional and informal social support systems - available to cope with them. Unstructured interviews with four interlocu-tors and sporadic participant observation in March and April 2022 provided the main basis of the study, complemented by desk research. The conceptual lens of precarity was chosen to describe the experiences. Precarity was conceptualised as a politically induced condition whereby certain population groups are more affected than others by the failure of political systems to sustain social and economic institutions that are meant to provide a base of life and security (Butler, 2009a; Butler, 2009b).

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