Women and Technological Change – A Cast Study of Three Fishing Villages

Abstract

Kerala has a long coastline of 590 kilometres. In addition, a net work of rivers, Lakes and backwater provide considerable scope for inland fishing. Spread along Kerala's sea-coast are some 250 fishing villages with a population of 800,009. Persons actively engaged in fishing are estimated at 150,000.The focus of the paper is on the three fishing villages, Namely, Sakthikulangara, Meendakara and Puthenthura, located in the Southern part of Kerala. In the first two villages, the fishermen are predominently Latin Catholic, and in the third villages? They are Hindu by religion. The Hindu fishermen belong t o the Araya caste, one of the two major castes to which  fishermen in Kerala generally belong, Both the castes rank pretty low in cast e heirarchy but are considered above the untouchables.