Upgrading and exploitation in the fishing industry: Contributions of value chain analysis

This article presents a framework for fisheries sector analysis based on the literatures on global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs). A value chain approach offers an alternative to focusing primarily on policy as an explanatory variable, by bringing into focus relations among buyers, sellers and other stakeholders as well as their institutional context. After outlining the utility of this approach, the article identifies three questions at the forefront of contemporary debates on the dynamics of GVCs and GPNs. Namely: (1) How institutional context affects distributional and regulatory outcomes; (2) The conditions under which particular institutions that limit or regulate market forces are either productive or perverse; and (3) Why and how particular markets are constituted in the ways that they are. The article then showcases some of the central findings from the case studies brought together in this thematic issue, demonstrating how they contribute to current analytic debates surrounding value chains and core substantive problems facing both fisheries and those engaged in the fishing industry.