The ReSET project investigates Small-Scale Fisheries trade networks and their capacity to respond to interconnected changes.

About

The ReSET project investigates small-scale fisheries supply chains in Galicia, Spain, with a particular focus on gender.

Aims

The overarching aim of this project is to understand how relational structures in different types of SSF supply chains constitute resilience capacities that enable transformative responses to face interweaved changes. By relational structures we refer to the networks of social and ecological relationships in which supply chains are embedded, including broader social structures such as gender and community structures.

To achieve this aim, the project will answer three interrelated research questions:

  1. What relational structures shape resilience capacities in different SSF supply chains and how are they enacted to respond to coalescing changes affecting the supply chains?
  2. How are response networks, consisting of responses that interact with multiple changes, developed in different SSF supply chains and how do they influence transformative responses?
  3. How do relational structures and response networks interact and enable or constrain transformative responses across different SSF supply chains?

Overall, the project will yield innovative methodological and conceptual contributions to understand food supply chain resilience. It will foster the capacity of supply chains to face the myriad of changes that are affecting, simultaneously or sequentially, food systems.

Case study: Small-scale fisheries supply chains in Galicia

The ReSET project investigates a case study involving Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF) supply chains in Galicia, Spain. It follows a case within a case research approach, analyzing different types of supply chains that differ in their relational structures (including social structures, trading arrangements and social-ecological relationships), and reach diverse markets, from local to global.

SSF in Galicia are especially important in the European Union (EU), comprising 50% of the SSF’s activity in Spain according to the Illuminating Hidden Harvest project (Macho et al. 2022). The selection of subcases and data collection will be approached from a gender lens to avoid the common overlook of the role of women in the SSF literature, and since gender structures mediate social relationships and ultimately influence resilience capacities. Galician SSF constitute an especially relevant case to investigate the role of gender. These fisheries encompass over 90% of women directly engaged in harvesting activities in Spanish SSF (Macho et al. 2022), and their supply chains have a marked gender component.

Methods

The project develops a mixed-methods approach, where: i) narrative analysis of interview data investigates relational structures that shape resilience capacities; ii) participatory network mapping and analysis investigates interactions between diverse changes and responses, what the project conceptualizes as “response networks”; and iii) quantitative network analyses asses the role of relational structures for transformative responses or actions. These three types of methods will be applied successively during the four years of the project (2025-2029).

For more information about these methods and their application, please contact the project leader.

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