Introduction: Gender and resource crisis in the North Atlantic fisheries

Increasing global and local concern with overexploitation, pollution and degradation of the earth's natural resources focuses attention on people's relationships with the environment. Feminist scholars assert that this relationship is significantly gendered, that men and women have different relationships to the environment, that these differences are relevant to the resolution of environmental problems, and that we will not solve environmental problems without feminist theory (Merchant, 1989; Sachs, 1997; Shiva, 1989; Skjonsberg, 1995). In this special issue, an international group of feminist scholars, from the social sciences, employ a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, and draw upon their own experiences as researchers, activists and teachers to identify and explore the gendered impacts of what has come to be known as the North Atlantic fisheries crisis. Our contributors show that the crisis affects the economic well-being, local and national identities, social organization and cultural values and life ways of substantial numbers of women and men on both sides of the North Atlantic.