As long as there are fish in the sea
I am a clinical psychologist based in Bangalore, South India. I was part of a team that established The Promise Foundation with the intention of applying the behavioural sciences to support the educational, emotional and economic development of the individual. The Foundation’s work, both research and practice, rests on ideas drawn from broad trends in the literature, particularly in the behavioural sciences, anthropology, history and the cognitive sciences, as well as concepts that have emerged from our own research and experience. Further information about Promise is available on our websites: www.thepromisefoundation.org, www.jivacareer.org and www.linguaakshara.org.
I also work as an international development consultant for a range of multilateral agencies and these assignments have given me the chance to encounter various cultures and ways of living over the last two decades.
These professional experiences have led to the formulation of the cultural preparedness approach and this series introduces various facets of this model. This first blog draws upon a milestone experience in my life during an assignment in 2006 in the Republic of Maldives when I realised that rather than rushing in with "answers" I needed to learn to allow the context to guide my actions. I learned that different questions required different methods and that it may indeed be in the question that the answer could lie.
“As long as there are fish in the sea…”
The Maldives is a small South Asian developing island-nation in the Indian ocean comprising 1192 coral islands, of which 188 are inhabited. Lying south west of India, the islands are grouped into 26 natural atolls, stretching almost 750 kilometres from North to South and covering a total area of about 90,000 square kilometres. With populations of less than 1000 on some islands, and a total population of about 393,500 inhabitants, this is the smallest Asian country and the most geographically dispersed (Ministry of Planning and National Development, 2006).
While the earliest written history of the Maldives is marked around 543 BCE, folklore and mentions in other histories (e.g., Indian history) point to the possibility that the Maldives has been peopled for over 2000 years (Bell, 1940). Maldivian society is characterised by strong traditional orientations, small close-knit social units with clear lines of leadership, strong family values and kinship ties that are passed on across generations. The leader of an island is the Island Chief (katheebu), who plays a paternal role in community life.
Given that over 90% of this nation comprises the ocean, the sea has been absorbed into the lives of these islanders and they live in perfect harmony with their surroundings. Ancient Maldivian folktales are replete with stories about fishes (particularly the tuna fish), crabs, seabirds and other creatures of the sea which create a cultural foundation, even from childhood, for a deep connection with the sea.
It is against this cultural and economic background that I was asked to lead the implementation of a project which was to establish a national career guidance system, with emphasis on vocational education and training. At the inception of the project I conducted a survey on a number of islands, to understand Maldivian culture, economic and occupational orientations. I present below a paraphrased recounting of my encounter with a highly respected Maldivian fisherman whose wisdom played a significant role in my formulation of the cultural preparedness approach.
I first met him as a participant in one of my focus group discussions (FGD) on the island of Kulhudhuffushi, in northern Maldives, well known for its fishermen, blacksmiths, rope makers and boat builders. I first noticed him because of his restlessness as a participant in the group discussion. He seemed annoyed and in deep disagreement with my description of careers, occupations and rational decision making. He did not participate at all. After the meeting I went up to him with my interpreter and explained to him that I valued his opinion and that I was disappointed that he did not express his views in the meeting. At first he seemed disdainful. But I think he did realise that I was sincere in my desire to ground my work upon Maldivian culture. Finally he began to talk. The discussion gathered momentum and went on over the next three days of my stay on the island. His anguish at how tourism was upsetting a 2000-year-old history, as well as traditional Maldivian values, was palpable. He took me around the island and explained the boat making industry to me. Gazing at the graceful contours of a 100-foot fishing boat (Mas Dhoani) that was under construction I realised that the boat was entirely handcrafted. He explained that traditional Maldivian boat building used the technique of tying hand-hewn planks of coconut wood with rope twisted from coconut fibre (roanu). No iron or other metal was used. The roanu was threaded through holes bored around the edges of planks and the holes were waterproofed by plugging them with wooded pegs. I saw also that Maldivian master boat-builders did not use diagrams or sophisticated instruments to design and build a perfect boat. They did it all relying entirely on experience and their learning through observation of their fathers and forefathers. I also realised that over the ages a number of occupations ranging from carpentry and anchor making to rope making and caulking had clustered around the profession of boat making, in an informal hierarchy.
My fisherman friend (he had, albeit gradually, become a friend!) had further insights for me. He allowed me to accompany his crew and took me fishing. Here again I noticed that a variety of occupations including navigation, identification of fishing locations, fish-hook making and fish processing had grown around the fishing profession. As the boat left the harbour and headed into the open sea, I saw that on the boat too, a code of occupational roles was in place. My fisherman friend was at the prow of the boat, looking keenly at the sea and the sky above. At first it did not seem that the boat was heading toward a specific fishing spot. But I was mistaken. The crew was following instructions from my fisherman friend who was interpreting signs from the sea surface, and cloud and bird formations in the sky. At his sudden cry, specific crew members sprayed baskets of tiny baitfish into the sea. And in an instant the boat was surrounded by a massive shoal of tuna! Thousands of fish surrounded the boat, gulping the baitfish. Then the fishing began. The sea was brimming with fish, swimming so close to the surface. Yet, the fishing method used was the pole-and-line technique. Fish were hauled into the boat, one-at-a-time. Of course large quantities were caught, but still it was just one-at-a-time! After a while, the shoal moved away. The boat was heaped with silvery tuna. As another team began to process the fish, I asked my friend, why they didn’t use a large net to catch more fish. He gave me a long (despairing) look and said, “If we use a net, there are no fish for tomorrow.”
It was my last night on Kulhudhuffushi. Many of my (largely neoliberal) ideas about career and occupation had been challenged and shaken. My friend’s words as we walked along the island shore that night transformed my thinking in an almost epiphanic manner. He said, “As long as there are fish in the sea, there is no need to think of what you describe as ‘career’”! Early the next morning as I sailed away from that island (on a fiberglass cruise boat, ironically), I asked how it was that my fisherman friend could find that huge shoal of tuna merely by instinct. “Ah”, my young interpreter said, “he is the fish father”.
Embedded within the cultural preparedness paradigm is the notion of cultural equivalence. It is important to acknowledge that knowledge, ideas and systems emanating from non-Western epistemologies merit more than indulgent descriptions as “alternative” or “indigenous” approaches. Composed of a repository of wisdom that has emerged from ways of living, which are perhaps centuries old, they are in fact “mainstream” thought for a given culture and warrant acceptance as valid frameworks for generating hypotheses, formulating designs for research and intervention and for making interpretations. Acknowledging the relativity of cultural preparedness equilibrium across cultures would truly liberate the researcher and practitioner to address felt needs.
Extracted from
Arulmani, G. (2019). The cultural preparedness framework: Equilibrium and its alteration. In N. Arthur. & M. McMahon. (Eds.), Contemporary theories of career development (pp. 195-208). New York: Routledge
References
Bell, H. C. P. (1940). The Maldive islands: Monograph on the history, archaeology and epigraphy. Male, Maldives: Ceylon Government Press.
Ministry of Planning and National Development. (2006). Republic of Maldives: Seventh National Development Plan, 2006-2010, (Working Draft). Male, Maldives.
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