Alissa Barnes
Qualitative Approaches to Documenting Small-Scale Fisheries Knowledge and Fisheries Governance in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra
Along the coast of Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, Alissa is exploring what coexistence looks like in a marinescape. For the past decade, she has worked in India's marine fisheries sector, spending time with fishing communities along several stretches of India’s coasts. Her work has brought her into conversation with fishers, researchers, government agencies and conservation practitioners, and has convinced her that conservation is as much about people, relationships, livelihoods and histories as it is about species and ecosystems. For the coastal communities she works with, coexistence is not a concept but an everyday practice of adapting to ecological, social and economic change.
Through her Champions project, Alissa will work with fishing communities in Ratnagiri, to document and archive small-scale fisheries knowledge systems, including local ecological knowledge and fishing practices. She will also map how resources are used across space and seasons, with attention to gender. Many of the project's activities build directly on recommendations community members have voiced over several years. Her work will turn these lived experiences and changing fishing practices into accessible formats and dialogue processes. Her work aims to strengthen fisheries co-operatives' role in governance, build trust between communities and institutions, and show how community knowledge can shape fairer, locally relevant conservation and fisheries management.
