Leeches and linchpins: a scoping review of seafood market intermediaries in small-scale fishery supply chains

Seafood market intermediaries, often termed middlemen, play a crucial yet contested role in connecting small-scale fisheries (SSF) to global seafood markets. While their influence has long been recognized, scholarly accounts have tended to frame these intermediaries as either exploitative actors who constrain fishers’ livelihoods or as essential actors who provide access to markets, finance, and social protection. This scoping review examines how recent literature (2019–2021) normatively frames seafood market intermediaries, and what these framings reveal about scholarly and policy discourses on SSF. Using a qualitative synthesis of peer-reviewed and grey literature, we identify predominant framings that cast these intermediaries as both leeches and linchpins, thereby reinforcing power asymmetries while also buffering fishers against economic and social risks. We discuss how these normative framings shape broader narratives that influence fisheries governance and policy, with implications for equitable outcomes. The paper also demonstrates the value of systematic scoping methods for synthesizing qualitative marine social science research and provides methodological reflections for small research teams. Recognizing the diverse, gendered, and socially embedded roles of intermediaries can inform more just and context-sensitive interventions in SSF seafood supply chains.