This case study seeks to understand and highlight how the changes that have taken place in the fishery of Kerala State have also played out in the lives of women who are still very active in the small-scale fishery (SSF) particularly in the districts of Trivandrum, Kollam, and Kasargod. Labour in small scale fishing was a shared or rather complementary activity between men and women along the whole fish value chain. While men did the actual fishing, women were active primarily in the pre and post harvest jobs. Nevertheless the nature of these women’s jobs has seen major changes in the last two decades as the nature of the small scale fishery has also changed. Initially women were engaged in pre-harvest activity either making or mending fishing nets. They lost this role when the machine-made nets came into the sector in the mid 1970s.
