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<p>Women’s economic participation in the commercial seafood sector of Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) is low, and the sector’s gender dimensions have received limited attention. This study examines women’s roles and economic participation in the NT commercial seafood sector from 1950 to the early 2020s. Drawing on archival, scholarly and grey literature, together with qualitative data from key informant interviews, it identifies four phases of sectoral development: Organization, Capitalization, Regulation, and Negotiation, and assesses their implications for gender inclusion and labour diversity. The analysis extends social provisioning theory to interpret these phases as an embedded social process structured by three dynamics: production, the relation between human activity and fisheries resources; stratification, shaped by the distribution of capital, resource access and assets; and contestation, defined by the agency of marginalized groups resisting institutional barriers. Findings show that women’s labour in the sector, though indispensable, was consistently undervalued. Restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s dismantled shore-based processing and concentrated license ownership, narrowing women’s direct employment. While their numbers grew in administrative and regulatory roles, women remained clustered in support positions and excluded from core sites of value creation. The study highlights the historical contingency of these outcomes, showing that alternative trajectories, such as support for processing, diversification, and the substantive recognition of Aboriginal land, sea, and social rights, might have enabled more equitable development pathways for value creation. By contrast, the dominant emphasis on ‘economic efficiency’ foreclosed these possibilities, underscoring the need for future approaches that integrate gender equity and Indigenous rights with sustainability to achieve genuinely inclusive outcomes.</p>

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“A book of myths in which our names do not appear”: a historical overview of women’s economic participation in the commercial seafood sector of the Northern Territory, Australia

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  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月10日

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  • Nilanjana Biswas,
  • Natasha Stacey

摘要

Women’s economic participation in the commercial seafood sector of Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) is low, and the sector’s gender dimensions have received limited attention. This study examines women’s roles and economic participation in the NT commercial seafood sector from 1950 to the early 2020s. Drawing on archival, scholarly and grey literature, together with qualitative data from key informant interviews, it identifies four phases of sectoral development: Organization, Capitalization, Regulation, and Negotiation, and assesses their implications for gender inclusion and labour diversity. The analysis extends social provisioning theory to interpret these phases as an embedded social process structured by three dynamics: production, the relation between human activity and fisheries resources; stratification, shaped by the distribution of capital, resource access and assets; and contestation, defined by the agency of marginalized groups resisting institutional barriers. Findings show that women’s labour in the sector, though indispensable, was consistently undervalued. Restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s dismantled shore-based processing and concentrated license ownership, narrowing women’s direct employment. While their numbers grew in administrative and regulatory roles, women remained clustered in support positions and excluded from core sites of value creation. The study highlights the historical contingency of these outcomes, showing that alternative trajectories, such as support for processing, diversification, and the substantive recognition of Aboriginal land, sea, and social rights, might have enabled more equitable development pathways for value creation. By contrast, the dominant emphasis on ‘economic efficiency’ foreclosed these possibilities, underscoring the need for future approaches that integrate gender equity and Indigenous rights with sustainability to achieve genuinely inclusive outcomes.