Methodological nationalism and labour justice in seafood supply chains

Abstract Drawing on the seafood industry in Thailand as our point of departure, we argue that scholarship and advocacy in seafood supply chains have often been limited by inaccurate characterisations of the diverse ways that these supply chains are organised. Scholars and labour justice advocates often assume that seafood exports from Thailand and elsewhere are produced by the domestic fishing industry, rather than accounting for the way that most raw materials are imported from non-Thai fisheries that also employ transnational migrant workers. They also assume an undifferentiated national seafood production industry. This has left labour advocacy vulnerable to counter-campaigns based on more accurate accounts of seafood supply chains, including that launched by the National Fishing Association of Thailand during the past year. We explain these inaccuracies as partly a result of methodological nationalism and territorial trap thinking. This refers to analytical frameworks that orient researchers to take the nation-state and its territorial boundaries as the main unit of analysis, while neglecting transnational networks and internal differentiation. Additional reasons include a lack of transparency and complexity in seafood supply chains, and the way that transnational advocacy networks are organised so that links across global South producing countries are weak. We illustrate an expanded supply chain approach by conducting an analysis of the labour justice issues for seafood supply chains based in and passing through Thailand.