Abstract
In 2009 an international team of scientists working with Clean Seas Tuna managed to get captive Southern Bluefin tuna to spawn on land. This was heralded as an international break through and a first step in producing wholly sustainable Bluefin tuna, a highly lucrative product. In this talk I want to explore how human populations have interacted with tuna and how this shapes identities in particular ways in the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia. To adequately capture the complexity of the seafood market takes us into ‘research in the wild’, as Michel Callon characterises ‘the new forms of techno-science-society interactions, in which non-scientists work with scientists to produce and disseminate knowledge.’ (2003) Callon’s earlier work on the scallop industry in France pointed to a new way of understanding the dynamics of markets. However he, along with much of ANT, ignores the sensuality of the material connections they trace. In this talk I will engage with what I have previously called a rhizo-ethnography of bodies as a necessary addition to his conception of markets. We will begin to see how human and tuna appetites forge historical and sensual networks essential to the promotion of sustainable seafood markets, in ways that open out the question of sustainability.
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Notes
- 1.
The more-than-human is a term primarily used in geography for studies that attempt to move beyond the human perspective, and shares some tenets of post-humanism. It is, of course, a rather more difficult task to do methodologically than to write about theoretically. My own take on this has been considerably helped by J.K. Gibson-Graham (2011) but also see Panelli (2010), McLean (2009). A recent issue devoted to ‘multispecies ethnography’ is provocative (Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010). While research on fish tends to be somewhat under studied within the social sciences, there are notable exceptions from which I take inspiration. Ted Bestor’s (2000, 2003, 2004) work on tuna in the context of Tsukiji and more generally Japanese culture is a wonderful look at how Bluefin Tuna came to be so valued, as well as the globalization of a taste for sushi. Becky Mansfield (2005) and Kate Barclay and Sun-Hui Koh (2008) investigate questions of governance in the tuna industry respectively in North America and Japan. Kevin St. Martin (2004, 2005) has investigated the communities of North American fisheries. Christopher Bear and Sally Eden (2008) have brought a more-than-human perspective to both angling and regional network of fisheries regulation. My interest in fish farming has been considerably furthered in conversations with Marianne Lien and John Law about their joint project on Norwegian Atlantic salmon farming – Norway is, of course, the largest producer and technical force behind fish farming. See, Law (2010), and Lien (2005, 2007).
- 2.
This research has been funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant: E. Probyn, ‘Taste & Place: the transglobal production and consumption of food and drink’ (DP0987083).
- 3.
This is a very condensed account, which elsewhere I expand upon (Probyn, 2011). To briefly explain, Hagen Stehr set up Cleanseas, which has effectively closed the breeding cycle of kingfish – a native Australian fish – and is now attempting to do it commercially with tuna.
- 4.
Christopher Connery asks whether for Barthes: ‘is it the void beyond and outside of the terrestrial real? A blank interstitial element?’ (1996, p. 290). Connery argues that ‘signify it does, although in a manner beyond resolve’ (p. 290).
- 5.
The so-called ‘Pacific solution’ to asylum seekers arriving by boat was introduced under the previous government (see Magner, 2004). As Sara Ramey explains, ‘Sending asylum seekers to third countries became part of the Pacific Solution, a series of measures designed to address the immigration “crisis”’ (Ramey, 2011).
- 6.
The oceans are a visceral reminder of ‘the tragedy of the commons’. In 1968 Garrett Hardin, a genetic biologist, debated the consequences of population growth in terms that are instructive and provocative: ‘It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of over-population without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy. They think that farming the seas or developing new strains of wheat will solve the problem – technically.’ (1968: 1243)
- 7.
For a more comprehensive account of oysters, their taste and biology and place within the literature of oyster-lovers, see Probyn (2012).
- 8.
Maggie Beer, one of Australia’s most respected food experts, suggested the title of the symposium. The aim of this international symposium was to advance debate about the production and consumption of food beyond its safe confines as ‘feel good politics’ and it brought together a dozen producers as well as speakers such as Julie Guthman, Stewart Lockie and Mara Miele. http://www.unisa.edu.au/hawkeinstitute/events/producing-regions.asp
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Probyn, E. (2014). Sustaining Fish-Human Communities? A More-Than-Human Question. In: Rinehart, R., Barbour, K., Pope, C. (eds) Ethnographic Worldviews. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6916-8_12
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