Tværkulturelle og Regionale Studier > Forskning > Komparative > Igangværende forskningsprojekter > Fishermen in Tranquebar

The fishermen in Tanquebar – socio-economic transformation processes

Research project by Esther Fihl

Projektet er del af Nationalmuseets Tranquebar Initiativ og Galathea3

Like in colonial times, the village of Tranquebar today consists of different quarters, each inhabited by a certain jati or socio-religious group. The largest of these neighbourhoods is still the fishermen part of the village situated to the north - and some of it on top of the old Danish fortification wall around Tranquebar. The fishermen and their relations to other social groups in the village will most likely be strongly affected by the ongoing Indo-Danish restorations of old colonial buildings and by the inflow of a growing number of both national and international tourists. Problems related to the local social and cultural sustainability of these activities along with new income possibilities for the fishermen call for long term research attention, also to try to foresee and contribute to avoid undesirable side affects of modern tourism.

Stranden i Tranquebar

By this research project, I would like to continue the ethnographical fieldwork investigations that I have carried out among these fishermen since the early 1980s and which document that the relatively poor living conditions have during the last 25 years been improved. However, as a result of the recent tsunami, the fishermen are now in the middle of a large social and economic reconstruction process, since 800 people lost their lives and most of the fishermen quarter in Tranquebar was washed away along with boats and fishing gear. For this population, the economic basis for living was removed from one day to the other and important structures of their local society and culture quavered.

Kvinder i Tranquebar

On the basis of my earlier data from this community, this research project wants to document how the fishermen themselves try to restore normal life after the tsunami and how they cope in this totally new context with local and international NGOs and the Indian State offering some relief. In both a short and long term perspective, the question is: Do they seek new ways of living and does this grave tsunami interruption of “normality” result in intensified transnational migration? An increasing number of especially young unmarried men have during the last 25 years left the fishing community in Tranquebar for a few years to go to Malaysia, Singapore or Saudi-Arabia in order to find work, primarily low-paid jobs in the building industry. From abroad, these young men often functioned as breadwinners for their families, besides saved up money to buy boats upon their return to Tranquebar.

Barn i Tranquebar

The fishermen have traditions somewhat different from those of other social groups in the Tranquebar area. These traditions prescribe perceptions of ideal living arrangements, food, clothing, Hindu worship, relations between generations, etc. Conflicts between fishermen are solved by a powerful jati council, which consists of elderly men who will also sanction marriages and, to some extent, relieve economic problems of fishing families in need. Many of the fishermen who died in the tsumani were, however, elderly people and with the new balance between generations in the fishermen community, the question is weather the power of this council is still maintained by the elderly men, or if younger men more than before claim authority and power. Before the tsunami, the economic resources of the council were secured by ‘fines’ on fishermen who had violated the traditional rules in the community and by a special ‘tax’ on landed fish. Thus, the fishermen community was characterised by a strong social identity and by a number of possible punitive measures for those who violated the conventions. Traditionally, the fishermen village functioned as a social unity based on a specific trade shared by members of the community. On an every day basis, life on the beach consisted of preparing the fish for sale, repairing the fishing nets, and ongoing discussions of rights and duties in relation to co-operation, gender relations, and issues regarding schooling and education for the younger generation. Negotiations of culture and identity were thus ever present in the fishing village and an integral part of community life.

Fisker med datter efter tsunamien

The goal of the present research project is to document the great social and economic transformation processes and intensified negotiations of culture and identity taking place after the tsunami and the advent of ever more tourists in Tranquebar and to discuss these in relation to anthropological debates on long term social and economic sustainability in development situations and in relation to debates on social and cultural collapses due to sudden events coursed by natural disasters or wars.