From Latin America/ Brazil
Fish, women and videotape
A film being made in Brazil will attempt to capture, on film, the roles of women in fishing communities
by Maria Cristina Maneschy, Professor at the Federal University of Para, Brazil and coordinator of ICSFs Women in Fisheries (WIF) Programme
A video film is being produced though the Women in Fisheries Project (WIF) of the ICSF. It aims to show the various roles played by women in four of the fishing communities in the state of Pará in North Brazil. It also aims to show that women in fishing communities are organizing and thus gaining recognition.
The script has three main parts. After presenting briefly the importance of fisheries in the region, it stresses the fact that both men and women are present in the fisheries. They engage in different, though complementary, activities. However, women’s roles and spaces are less visible than the ones of men. Some women fishworkers will be intervieweda shrimp fisher, a woman who fishes with fixed traps alongside husband, a net weaver, a fisherman’s wife who works in agriculture and is part of a women’s association, a woman who catches crabs in a mangrove thicket, and a woman boatowner who manages the familial business. They will explain their work and the relationship between home and work.
The next part of the film will present a historical background. Two women will talk about their past, when it was necessary to work hard to dry and salt fish, as well as to prepare the fishing nets and gear.
The final part of the video will focus on the way women have now organized, as part of associations. It will explore what organization means to them, and specifically, the difficulties that those who participate have to face: the resistance of their families and communities, a general lack of recognition of their roles by others, and their own lack of self-esteem. Despite these difficulties, the growing awareness of the woman fishworker inside fishermen movements will be highlighted.
Land Partners, as the video is titled, is being produced by an NGO from Belém called CEPEPO (Center of Studies in Popular Education), in collaboration with the WIF project. CEPEPO has extensive experience in making videos that function as popular educational tools.
