Petty Traders, Gender, and Development in a South Indian Fishery*

Abstract: In this paper I examine the impact of mechanization and commercialization on small‐scale fish traders in Kerala, India, with special emphasis on gender and the impact of economic transformation on women fish traders. I explore the relationship of women's work in distribution to production and how this has changed with capitalist development. I argue that because women's roles in the fish economy have been overlooked, they have experienced economic marginalization at the same time that their labor has become increasingly important for household survival. Such marginalization stems from a qualitative change that has taken place in their relationship to production and marketing as a result of capitalist development and the ecological crisis it has engendered.