Melissa Marschke
Biographic Data
| ID | 146387 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melissa Marschke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melissa |
| FAMILY NAME | Marschke |
| SIGNATURE | MARSCHKE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ottawa |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1202-6681 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 284 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The Practical Paradoxes of a More Inclusive Approach to Climate Change Adaptation
We conducted semi‐structured interviews with climate change adaptation (CCA) practitioners in Canada and Vietnam (purposive sampling, n = 26) to examine their views on inclusiveness in CCA and explore pathways to enhance inclusivity in CCA policies and practices. Applying thematic analysis both deductively and inductively on NVivo, the study reveals four key paradoxes that practitioners from both countries face in their pursuit of inclusivity: (a…
Can green concrete help address the sand and aggregate crisis? A scoping literature review
Construction material industries, including the concrete sector, drive a huge demand for aggregates, including sand, one of the most widely consumed resources globally. Emerging advocacy campaigns on sand sustainability frame less aggregate intensive “ecological” or “green” concrete materials as solutions to mitigate the socio-environmental impacts emerging from sand consumption. This scoping literature review considers how the benefits from gree…
Exploring how sand infill is transforming Phnom Penh’s Tompun-Cheung Ek wetland
We examine the loss of wetland spaces for city expansion. • Profound societal and ecological inequalities emerge in places of sand infill. • Urban farmers struggle to grow their aquatic crops; many are no longer grown. • Youth have turned to garbage picking. • Significant ecosystem services are lost with sand infill. This paper focuses on the social-ecological consequences that have emerged as sand infill has transformed Phnom Penh’s Tompun-Cheun…
Migrant workers in Irish fisheries: Exploring the contradictions through the lens of racial capitalism
Exploitative working conditions for migrant workers in industrial fisheries have recently drawn considerable attention among activists and scholars, often with a focus on Asian fisheries. Even so, fish work can offer a better livelihood option than migrant workers might have in their home countries. These contradictions are apparent in fisheries around the world, including those based in Europe and North America. In this paper we explore the inco…
(In)visible fluidities across sandscapes: Sand dredging and local socio-environmental impacts along the Red and Mekong Rivers
River sand, in its fluid form, is constantly shifting, being displaced through human activities and hydrological processes. The specific connections between the drivers and consequences of sand displacement are difficult to isolate. An emerging concept to help unpack such connections is the sandscape, which encompasses the social-ecological interactions and spatial reconfigurations that the movement and transformation of this granular resource yi…
Locating Sand
Sand extraction is quickly gaining attention both in the academic and policy communities. However, we lack grounded understandings of the multiple realities and impacts of sand extractions across the Global South. This special issue aims to provide a jumping-off point towards both empirically and conceptually sophisticated work on sand. This introduction wants to present the main themes emerging in the paper, key concepts used and developed and s…
Aquaculture governance: Five engagement arenas for sustainability transformation
Coastal transitions: Small-scale fisheries, livelihoods, and maritime zone developments in Southeast Asia
Across Southeast Asia, coastal livelihoods are becoming more diverse and more commodified, as maritime zone developments intensify. We review literature from the ten maritime states in Southeast Asia to assess how older and emerging forms of maritime zone developments influence the viability of small-scale fishing livelihoods. Applying a political economy lens to small-scale fisheries and maritime zone developments at regional scale, we show how …
The ambiguous impacts of alternative livelihoods on fisher wellbeing in a closed access fish sanctuary in Port Antonio, Jamaica
Alternative livelihood programs are a central feature of contemporary conservation planning that aim to aid efforts to reduce pressure on natural resources and avoid, minimize, or mitigate the impacts of conservation on the wellbeing of local stakeholders. Evidence of the effectiveness of these programs is, however, decidedly mixed. This research examines the relationship between livelihoods, conservation, and wellbeing among nearshore fishers in…
Selective border permeability: Governing complex environmental issues through and beyond Covid-19
COVID-19 has changed the permeability of borders in transboundary environmental governance regimes. While borders have always been selectively permeable, the pandemic has reconfigured the nature of cross-border flows of people, natural resources, finances and technologies. This has altered the availability of spaces for enacting sustainability initiatives within and between countries. In Southeast Asia, national governments and businesses seeking…
Beyond slavery scandals: Explaining working conditions among fish workers in Taiwan and Thailand
Seafarers in fishing: A year into the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper builds on our earlier publication that examined COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia during the initial six months of the pandemic. Drawing on interviews with port-based support organizations and various other international organizations, we outline how pre-existing structural marginalizations of seafarers in distant water fishing has made them particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of pandemic management pol…
Exploring livelihood transitions in the Mekong delta
Important environmental and economic changes are transforming livelihoods in coastal communes throughout the Mekong delta. In the process, the historical reliance on rice farming and fishing has become less viable and sustainable, forcing households to construct more complex livelihood strategies. To document these livelihood transformations, we have analyzed primary survey data from 346 households across eight coastal communes in Ca Mau Province…
Household recovery from disaster: Insights from Vietnam’s fish kill
In April 2016, toxic chemicals leaked into the ocean in central Vietnam during a trial of a waste discharge system for a newly built steel plant. This resulted in a significant fish kill that impacted coastal livelihoods and the seafood sector across four provinces. We surveyed 520 households to understand how people experienced this environmental disaster, and their recovery strategies. On average people stopped all fishing-related activities fo…
On the Coattails of globalization: Migration, migrants and Covid-19 in Asia
Positioning migrants as quintessential globalisation subjects, this paper reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ambivalent positioning of migration as a pathway for human development. Drawing on interviews with international and domestic labour migrants from Bangladesh, India, Laos and Myanmar working in Laos, Myanmar, China, Singapore and Thailand, the paper explores the vulnerabilities, challenges and opportunities that have come wi…
Precarious livelihoods: Examining the intersection of fish work and ecological change in coastal Jamaica
Precarity has not been applied in the context of fisheries‐based work, even as working conditions in fisheries are emerging to be a real issue. There has been limited analysis of fish work outside the media spotlight or how changing ecological and biophysical conditions (e.g. climate change and its effects) intersect with poor working conditions. We use insights from fieldwork along the southwest coast of Jamaica, to ask the following questions: …
Industrial seafood systems in the immobilizing Covid-19 moment
We set aside small-scale fisheries and aquaculture because of the distinctiveness of these heterogeneous value chains
Modern Slavery and Freedom: Exploring Contradictions through Labour Scandals in the Thai Fisheries
This paper examines the modern anti‐slavery movement through the lens of the slavery scandal in Thailand’s fisheries sector. The slavery framing provoked a response on the part of governments, corporations and NGOs that produced improvements in working conditions. Nevertheless, we argue that while the slavery framing was effective in drawing attention and resources to solidarity groups, it provided a poor guide to action because of how it resolve…
Flagpoling: Inter‐provincial Mobility of International Migrants within Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program
The temporary foreign worker programme (TFWP) is widely used in many sectors in Canada. Research on the TFWP in Canada has documented multiple types of abuse within the programme, often related to worker lack of access to citizenship and social benefits. Less is known about how mobile and often precarious migrant workers are able to navigate negative, challenging situations identified within the Canadian literature. Flagpoling, a process used by …
Fisheries development, labour and working conditions on Myanmar's marine resource frontier
Trading Sand, Undermining Lives: Omitted Livelihoods in the Global Trade in Sand
Sand is a scarce resource, extracted from rivers and coasts at rates that exceed its natural renewal. Yet, little is understood about the political economy of sand extraction, the livelihood vulnerabilities produced, or why sand grabbing is occurring at unprecedented rates in particular locations. Drawing together literature on global production network approaches in economic geography and debates on sustainable livelihoods in development geograp…
Migrant worker experiences in Atlantic Canadian fish processing plants
Low‐skilled migrant workers provide an important labour source in Atlantic Canada's seafood industry. This research unpacks the experiences of 22 workers from Thailand and the Philippines working in one Atlantic Canadian seafood processing company. We pay particular attention to migration routes, labour conditions, and worker mobility, along with worker reflections on their experiences landing a Canadian job. We also consider the perceptions of m…
Slavery scandals: Unpacking labour challenges and policy responses within the off-shore fisheries sector
Over the past year, scandals around what has been labelled slave labour in the industrial fisheries sector in Thailand have revealed not only the connections between northern buyers and southern labour practices, but also the relative lack of research on fisheries labour in Asia and the global South. The slavery and trafficking framings pervading these depictions have been very useful for drawing attention to and acting on criminal activities in …
Vietnam’s seafood boom: Economic growth with impoverishment
Coastal livelihoods in transition: How are Vietnamese households responding to changes in the fisheries and in the economy
Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning
Exploring Strategies that Build Livelihood Resilience: A Case from Cambodia
Livelihoods in Cambodian fishing communities are complex and dynamic. Fluctuations in resource abundance, seasonal cycles of resource use, and changes in access create conditions that bring challenges for rural households, as do economic and policy drivers. Nonetheless, people are continuously "doing something" in response to these stresses and shocks. This paper sets out to explore how households and community members attempt to mitigate against…
Trading Sand, Undermining Lives: Omitted Livelihoods in the Global Trade in Sand
Sand is a scarce resource, extracted from rivers and coasts at rates that exceed its natural renewal. Yet, little is understood about the political economy of sand extraction, the livelihood vulnerabilities produced, or why sand grabbing is occurring at unprecedented rates in particular locations. Drawing together literature on global production network approaches in economic geography and debates on sustainable livelihoods in development geograp…
On the Coattails of globalization: Migration, migrants and Covid-19 in Asia
Positioning migrants as quintessential globalisation subjects, this paper reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ambivalent positioning of migration as a pathway for human development. Drawing on interviews with international and domestic labour migrants from Bangladesh, India, Laos and Myanmar working in Laos, Myanmar, China, Singapore and Thailand, the paper explores the vulnerabilities, challenges and opportunities that have come wi…
Coastal livelihoods in transition: How are Vietnamese households responding to changes in the fisheries and in the economy
Fisheries development, labour and working conditions on Myanmar's marine resource frontier
Coastal transitions: Small-scale fisheries, livelihoods, and maritime zone developments in Southeast Asia
Across Southeast Asia, coastal livelihoods are becoming more diverse and more commodified, as maritime zone developments intensify. We review literature from the ten maritime states in Southeast Asia to assess how older and emerging forms of maritime zone developments influence the viability of small-scale fishing livelihoods. Applying a political economy lens to small-scale fisheries and maritime zone developments at regional scale, we show how …
Modern Slavery and Freedom: Exploring Contradictions through Labour Scandals in the Thai Fisheries
This paper examines the modern anti‐slavery movement through the lens of the slavery scandal in Thailand’s fisheries sector. The slavery framing provoked a response on the part of governments, corporations and NGOs that produced improvements in working conditions. Nevertheless, we argue that while the slavery framing was effective in drawing attention and resources to solidarity groups, it provided a poor guide to action because of how it resolve…
Making social sense of aquaculture transitions
Resilience deals explicitly with change and provides a middle ground between the social and the environmental sciences. However, a growing critique by social scientists questions the ability of resilience thinking to adequately examine the social dimensions of change. The question that emerges is how social scientists should engage with resilience. We addressed this question by comparing resilience with agrarian change and transitions theory, thr…
Do collective property rights make sense? Insights from central Vietnam
We draw on empirical results from three case studies of property rights change across forest and fisheries ecosystems in central Vietnam to investigate the circumstances under which collective property rights may make sense. A generic property rights framework was used to examine the bundles of rights and associated rights holders in each case, and to assess these arrangements with regard to their contextual fit, legitimacy and enforceability. Th…
(In)visible fluidities across sandscapes: Sand dredging and local socio-environmental impacts along the Red and Mekong Rivers
River sand, in its fluid form, is constantly shifting, being displaced through human activities and hydrological processes. The specific connections between the drivers and consequences of sand displacement are difficult to isolate. An emerging concept to help unpack such connections is the sandscape, which encompasses the social-ecological interactions and spatial reconfigurations that the movement and transformation of this granular resource yi…
Assessing the future of small-scale fishery systems in coastal Vietnam and the implications for policy
Migrant workers in Irish fisheries: Exploring the contradictions through the lens of racial capitalism
Exploitative working conditions for migrant workers in industrial fisheries have recently drawn considerable attention among activists and scholars, often with a focus on Asian fisheries. Even so, fish work can offer a better livelihood option than migrant workers might have in their home countries. These contradictions are apparent in fisheries around the world, including those based in Europe and North America. In this paper we explore the inco…
Selective border permeability: Governing complex environmental issues through and beyond Covid-19
COVID-19 has changed the permeability of borders in transboundary environmental governance regimes. While borders have always been selectively permeable, the pandemic has reconfigured the nature of cross-border flows of people, natural resources, finances and technologies. This has altered the availability of spaces for enacting sustainability initiatives within and between countries. In Southeast Asia, national governments and businesses seeking…
Flagpoling: Inter‐provincial Mobility of International Migrants within Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program
The temporary foreign worker programme (TFWP) is widely used in many sectors in Canada. Research on the TFWP in Canada has documented multiple types of abuse within the programme, often related to worker lack of access to citizenship and social benefits. Less is known about how mobile and often precarious migrant workers are able to navigate negative, challenging situations identified within the Canadian literature. Flagpoling, a process used by …
Adaptive Co-Management: Lessons from Coastal Cambodia
This paper focuses on how community-based management is unfolding in coastal Cambodia through the facilitation of a donor-funded, Cambodian-led government research team. Coastal communities in Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary illustrate the strong potential for community-government partnerships. Several lessons are highlighted: community-based management requires support from the provincial and national level; facilitation between stakeholders is …
Locating Sand
Sand extraction is quickly gaining attention both in the academic and policy communities. However, we lack grounded understandings of the multiple realities and impacts of sand extractions across the Global South. This special issue aims to provide a jumping-off point towards both empirically and conceptually sophisticated work on sand. This introduction wants to present the main themes emerging in the paper, key concepts used and developed and s…
Aquaculture governance: Five engagement arenas for sustainability transformation
Industrial seafood systems in the immobilizing Covid-19 moment
We set aside small-scale fisheries and aquaculture because of the distinctiveness of these heterogeneous value chains
Migrant worker experiences in Atlantic Canadian fish processing plants
Low‐skilled migrant workers provide an important labour source in Atlantic Canada's seafood industry. This research unpacks the experiences of 22 workers from Thailand and the Philippines working in one Atlantic Canadian seafood processing company. We pay particular attention to migration routes, labour conditions, and worker mobility, along with worker reflections on their experiences landing a Canadian job. We also consider the perceptions of m…
The ambiguous impacts of alternative livelihoods on fisher wellbeing in a closed access fish sanctuary in Port Antonio, Jamaica
Alternative livelihood programs are a central feature of contemporary conservation planning that aim to aid efforts to reduce pressure on natural resources and avoid, minimize, or mitigate the impacts of conservation on the wellbeing of local stakeholders. Evidence of the effectiveness of these programs is, however, decidedly mixed. This research examines the relationship between livelihoods, conservation, and wellbeing among nearshore fishers in…
Adaptive Co-Management: Lessons from Coastal Cambodia
This paper focuses on how community-based management is unfolding in coastal Cambodia through the facilitation of a donor-funded, Cambodian-led government research team. Coastal communities in Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary illustrate the strong potential for community-government partnerships. Several lessons are highlighted: community-based management requires support from the provincial and national level; facilitation between stakeholders is …
Cross-scale institutions and building resilience in the Canadian North
Local level sustainability planning for livelihoods: A Cambodian experience
How do Cambodian villagers perceive sustainability and what do they do ‘on the ground’? Looking at sustainability issues through the lens of two local resource management com-mittees, and using a triangulation of social science research methods, this paper examines the roles and responsibilities of these groups and how they grapple with resource degrada-tion and related activities. The committees have experimented with a range of resource managem…
Exploring Strategies that Build Livelihood Resilience: A Case from Cambodia
Livelihoods in Cambodian fishing communities are complex and dynamic. Fluctuations in resource abundance, seasonal cycles of resource use, and changes in access create conditions that bring challenges for rural households, as do economic and policy drivers. Nonetheless, people are continuously "doing something" in response to these stresses and shocks. This paper sets out to explore how households and community members attempt to mitigate against…
Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning
Le secteur des pêcheries de l'ère « post » au Cambodge: Une explication de la non-transformation
Le Cambodge est souvent considéré comme une société postconflit et postsocialiste qui connaît des réformes économiques et politiques importantes : si des réformes administratives favorisant la démocratie locale décentralisée peuvent être observées dans tous les secteurs, ce que ces réformes signifient dans la vie quotidienne des villages cambodgiens n'est cependant pas clair. Cet article examine quel rôle ces réformes jouent au niveau local par l…
Adaptive co‐management for social–ecological complexity
Building trust through collaboration, institutional development, and social learning enhances efforts to foster ecosystem management and resolve multi‐scale society–environment dilemmas. One emerging approach aimed at addressing these dilemmas is adaptive co‐management. This method draws explicit attention to the learning (experiential and experimental) and collaboration (vertical and horizontal) functions necessary to improve our understanding o…
Life, Fish and Mangroves: Resource Governance in Coastal Cambodia
In Life, Fish and Mangroves, Melissa Marschke explores the potential of resource governance, offering a case study of resource-dependent village life. Following six households and one village-based institution in coastal Cambodia over a twelve-year period, Marschke reveals the opportunities and constraints facing villagers and illustrates why local resource management practices remain delicate, even with a sustained effort. She highlights how gov…
Do collective property rights make sense? Insights from central Vietnam
We draw on empirical results from three case studies of property rights change across forest and fisheries ecosystems in central Vietnam to investigate the circumstances under which collective property rights may make sense. A generic property rights framework was used to examine the bundles of rights and associated rights holders in each case, and to assess these arrangements with regard to their contextual fit, legitimacy and enforceability. Th…
Assessing the future of small-scale fishery systems in coastal Vietnam and the implications for policy
Making social sense of aquaculture transitions
Resilience deals explicitly with change and provides a middle ground between the social and the environmental sciences. However, a growing critique by social scientists questions the ability of resilience thinking to adequately examine the social dimensions of change. The question that emerges is how social scientists should engage with resilience. We addressed this question by comparing resilience with agrarian change and transitions theory, thr…
Slavery scandals: Unpacking labour challenges and policy responses within the off-shore fisheries sector
Over the past year, scandals around what has been labelled slave labour in the industrial fisheries sector in Thailand have revealed not only the connections between northern buyers and southern labour practices, but also the relative lack of research on fisheries labour in Asia and the global South. The slavery and trafficking framings pervading these depictions have been very useful for drawing attention to and acting on criminal activities in …
Vietnam’s seafood boom: Economic growth with impoverishment
Coastal livelihoods in transition: How are Vietnamese households responding to changes in the fisheries and in the economy
Migrant worker experiences in Atlantic Canadian fish processing plants
Low‐skilled migrant workers provide an important labour source in Atlantic Canada's seafood industry. This research unpacks the experiences of 22 workers from Thailand and the Philippines working in one Atlantic Canadian seafood processing company. We pay particular attention to migration routes, labour conditions, and worker mobility, along with worker reflections on their experiences landing a Canadian job. We also consider the perceptions of m…
Fisheries development, labour and working conditions on Myanmar's marine resource frontier
Trading Sand, Undermining Lives: Omitted Livelihoods in the Global Trade in Sand
Sand is a scarce resource, extracted from rivers and coasts at rates that exceed its natural renewal. Yet, little is understood about the political economy of sand extraction, the livelihood vulnerabilities produced, or why sand grabbing is occurring at unprecedented rates in particular locations. Drawing together literature on global production network approaches in economic geography and debates on sustainable livelihoods in development geograp…
Precarious livelihoods: Examining the intersection of fish work and ecological change in coastal Jamaica
Precarity has not been applied in the context of fisheries‐based work, even as working conditions in fisheries are emerging to be a real issue. There has been limited analysis of fish work outside the media spotlight or how changing ecological and biophysical conditions (e.g. climate change and its effects) intersect with poor working conditions. We use insights from fieldwork along the southwest coast of Jamaica, to ask the following questions: …
Industrial seafood systems in the immobilizing Covid-19 moment
We set aside small-scale fisheries and aquaculture because of the distinctiveness of these heterogeneous value chains
Modern Slavery and Freedom: Exploring Contradictions through Labour Scandals in the Thai Fisheries
This paper examines the modern anti‐slavery movement through the lens of the slavery scandal in Thailand’s fisheries sector. The slavery framing provoked a response on the part of governments, corporations and NGOs that produced improvements in working conditions. Nevertheless, we argue that while the slavery framing was effective in drawing attention and resources to solidarity groups, it provided a poor guide to action because of how it resolve…
Flagpoling: Inter‐provincial Mobility of International Migrants within Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program
The temporary foreign worker programme (TFWP) is widely used in many sectors in Canada. Research on the TFWP in Canada has documented multiple types of abuse within the programme, often related to worker lack of access to citizenship and social benefits. Less is known about how mobile and often precarious migrant workers are able to navigate negative, challenging situations identified within the Canadian literature. Flagpoling, a process used by …
Beyond slavery scandals: Explaining working conditions among fish workers in Taiwan and Thailand
Seafarers in fishing: A year into the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper builds on our earlier publication that examined COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia during the initial six months of the pandemic. Drawing on interviews with port-based support organizations and various other international organizations, we outline how pre-existing structural marginalizations of seafarers in distant water fishing has made them particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of pandemic management pol…
Exploring livelihood transitions in the Mekong delta
Important environmental and economic changes are transforming livelihoods in coastal communes throughout the Mekong delta. In the process, the historical reliance on rice farming and fishing has become less viable and sustainable, forcing households to construct more complex livelihood strategies. To document these livelihood transformations, we have analyzed primary survey data from 346 households across eight coastal communes in Ca Mau Province…
Household recovery from disaster: Insights from Vietnam’s fish kill
In April 2016, toxic chemicals leaked into the ocean in central Vietnam during a trial of a waste discharge system for a newly built steel plant. This resulted in a significant fish kill that impacted coastal livelihoods and the seafood sector across four provinces. We surveyed 520 households to understand how people experienced this environmental disaster, and their recovery strategies. On average people stopped all fishing-related activities fo…
Geography (24 works) · Business (21 works) · Economics (21 works) · Political science (20 works) · Fishery (15 works) · Agriculture (12 works) · Ecology (12 works) · Livelihood (12 works) · Fishing (11 works) · Environmental resource management (10 works)