<p>Fishing, known to be among the most dangerous occupations worldwide, has historically been a male dominated field in which regional conflicts are a significant and persistent problem. While several scholars have sought to explain the drivers of fisheries conflict, its distinctly gendered and violent nature has yet to be critically examined. To this end, I draw on Nisbett and Cohen’s 'Culture of Honor' theory (1996) and Bourdieu's (1977) ‘Theory of Practice’ to deconstruct the historic and continued practice of fishing at sea and therefore of fisher ‘men’, and analyze violent conflicts that have occurred along the Southeast coast of India over the use of the purse-seine. I argue that violent conflict is a manifestation of a culture of honor that was historically invoked, cultivated and reproduced in harsh uncertain ecologies entailing dangerous work, economic precarity, marginalized existences and negligible state protection. Consequently, the practice of fishing is simultaneously structured, reproduced and reinforced by the material conditions of fishing at sea and by societal hierarchies of place, caste and gender that cumulatively structure the fisher habitus. Crucially, the normalization of violence in honor cultures suggests that conflict will likely recur unless the material and societal conditions of practice and the culture it continues to reproduce via the 'fisher habitus' are urgently addressed. Fisheries governance alone cannot resolve fisher conflict and may unwittingly exacerbate it as long as the inherent cultural violence, reinforced by caste hierarchies and patriarchy, that undergirds the practice of fishing and of fishermen, is overlooked.</p>