Aquatic food systems constitute a vital source of food, nutrition, livelihood, and culture for millions of people globally. Small-scale fisheries (SSF), while at times neglected, play a key role in local and global aquatic food systems. Yet, SSF are under threat due to climate change, blue economy initiatives, and industrial overfishing. My thesis examines the political and socio-ecological power
dynamics that mould Ghanaian small-scale fisheries and their aquatic food systems. Employing insights from critical marketization literature, heterodox political economy, food sovereignty, and feminist theories, I empirically explore and theoretically situate the implications of industrial overfishing on Ghanaian small-scale post-harvest fishery. Firstly, I examine the relationship
between oceanic capital accumulation in the industrial fishing sector, and the subsequent gendered implications of low fish landings in the Ghanaian small-scale post-harvest sector. Secondly, I investigate how industrial overfishing shapes the dynamic and heterogenous assemblage of aquatic food markets ‘in-the-making’, and the governmental effects of markets on
small-scale post-harvest social relations. Thirdly, I centre how capital accumulation in the industrial fishery unequally develops and transforms Ghanaian small-scale post-harvest market relations, to the detriment of Ghanaian territorial aquatic food markets. Examining the impacts of
oceanic capital accumulation on the small-scale fisheries sector can contribute towards building on a tentative but established literature which details food sovereign approaches to fisheries, but currently omits how capital shapes inequities in fisheries systems. Drawing on an ethnographic,
qualitative approach to research, I empirically and theoretically deconstruct the social, environmental, and economic processes that dynamically constitute aquatic food markets in Ghana. Understanding how oceanic capital accumulation shapes post-harvest relations and concomitant aquatic food market exchange has been underacknowledged in heterodox political
economy, political ecology, and food sovereignty literature. I contribute to explaining the contemporary contradictions and complexities that sculpt inequalities and environmental degradation in fisheries and their respective aquatic food systems.