| dc.description.abstract | Hva er en fisker? Dette er det sentrale spørsmålet i denne avhandlinga. Spørsmålet er
utgangspunkt for å utforske endringsprosesser i fiskerinæringa, både i fortida og i samtida. På
bakgrunn av dette drøfter avhandlinga hvilke oppfatninger, forståelser og beskrivelser som til
enhver tid benyttes til å definere hva fiskere er i ulike sammenhenger. Undersøkelsen starter i
det som kan kalles rekrutteringsdiskursen i fiske, som nettopp handler om hva fiskere er og
hvordan de skapes. Avhandlinga fokuserer på hvilke forståelser av fiskeren som formidles i
denne diskursen, og identifiserer både hvor oppfatningene kommer fra og hvordan de brukes
som strategier og repertoarer for å forme fiskerinæringa. I denne avhandlinga betraktes
fiskeren som en heterogen skapning som forandrer karakter og vesen alt etter hvilke
heterogene forbindelser den inngår i. I stedet for substansialistiske forklaringer og analyser
som henter sin forståelse i at fiskeren er noe gitt og substansielt som klart kan defineres
uttømmende og en gang for alle, bygger dette arbeidet på relasjonistiske tilnærminger som
følger i kjølvatnet av den postmoderne kritikken innen samfunnsvitenskapene.
Med aktør-nettverk-teori som teoretisk rammeverk og ei kvalitativ tilnærming til
vitenskapelige tekster, intervjuer, rapporter, statistikk og filmmateriale, undersøkes det
hvordan fiskeren formes gjennom det vi kan kalle moderniseringsmaskineriet. Avhandlinga
beskriver hvordan vitenskapelige, politiske, tekniske og økonomiske ressurser, mobiliseres og
knyttes sammen for å modernisere fiskerinæringa. Moderniseringsprosessene har tatt
utgangspunkt i tre forskjellige oppfatninger av hva fiskeren er: Fiskeren har blitt betrakta
enten som en individualistisk, rasjonell aktør: som i dette arbeidet kalles Den rasjonelle
fiskeren, som en strukturalistisk, verdensskapt aktør: Verden i fiskeren eller som en aktør som
skapes i et gjensidig møte mellom individ og verden: Fiskeren i verden. Avhandlinga
beskriver hvordan disse tre oppfatningene, som er oversettelser av filosofiske teorier om
mennesket, har vært utgangspunkt for vitenskapelige og politiske analyser i fiskerinæringa.
Avhandlinga beskriver hvordan oppfatningene har blitt benytta til å integrere fiskerinæringa i
det moderne samfunnet og hva som har blitt konsekvensen av prosessene i forhold til
spørsmålet om rekruttering og bemanning. Hovedkonklusjonen er at samtidig som
fiskerinæringa er opptatt av et avfolkingsproblem, der fiskeren som et menneske forsvinner,
foregår det også ei kontinuerlig overbefolking av fiskerinæringa, ikke først og fremst i form
av mennesker, men av hybride forbindelser som gir grunnlag for en ny definisjon og
forståelse av hva en fisker er. | en |
| dc.description.abstract | What is a fisherman? This is the crucial question in this thesis. The question is the point of
departure for a study of modernisation processes in Norwegian fisheries. With this question in
mind, different understandings and descriptions of what a fisherman is, are identified and
discussed. The thesis starts with the “discourse on recruitment” in the Norwegian fisheries, a
discourse that is actually about the fishermen’s creation and ontology. The thesis focuses on
the understandings of fishermen that this discourse conveys, where these understandings
come from and how they are constructed. Further, a main issue is to study how these
understandings are used as strategies or repertoires in shaping political and practical action in
the fisheries.
The thesis identifies three different understandings of what a fisherman is and how he
is created. These understandings have their origin in three major strategies for studying
humans and are well known from mainstream social theory. The thesis describes how these
understandings are translated into more general actor models that have made great impact on
fishing practices in Norway. In particular, the struggle between different scientific disciplines
and between different applied models for modernisation is highlighted. The thesis describes
how these processes and struggles have resulted in the creation of a new type of fisher, quite
different from the anthropoid fisherman we believed we knew. The disappearance of the
anthropoid fisherman and the occurrence of a new, cyborg fisher also have other
implications. The concern about depopulation in the fishing sector, that the ”recruitment
discourse” revolves around, turns out to be only part of the picture, and the thesis reveals that
a process of ”overpopulation” has taken place in the fisheries. However, the term
overpopulation also gets a new meaning in the thesis.
The theoretical approach – the fisherman and the fisheries as heterogeneous networks
As the central question above indicates, this thesis abandons a substantialistic approach to the
fisherman. The fisherman’s identity or essence is not regarded as given. Instead, the
fisherman is approached from a relationistic perspective. This is the perspective used in Actor
Network Theory (ANT). Inspired by the shift in focus from ontology to epistemology and the
move away from substantialism and naive realism by post-structuralists and post-modernists,
ANT introduces a neo-realistic perspective. In ANT, reality is not denied – as many claim the
post-modernists do – but regarded as complex, constructed, and relational. ANT is also
known as the sociology of translation. Translation is defined as all negotiations, intrigues,
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calculations, acts of persuasion and violence, thanks to which an actor or force takes, or
causes to be conferred on itself, authority to speak or act on behalf of another actor or force.
The main concern of ANT is the mechanisms of production, situation, and power of
knowledge. In order to analyse and understand, one should be wary of preconceived notions
about how such mechanisms look and function. ANT usually starts from concrete, empirical
situations, like a process of change in the fisheries, and then follows the actors’ more or less
successful attempts at establishing and stabilising “translation” chains. The approach is
inspired by Foucauldian discourse analysis, but unlike Foucault, ANT rejects the poststructuralist
idea of epistemological breaks in knowledge. In ANT, materials from past and
present form parts of heterogeneous networks and become relevant in different ways.
Through translation processes, an actor can stabilise a network. By silencing other
actors, some actors can step forth as the spokesperson or the driving force for the network.
Actors who succeed in stabilising and silencing the rest of the network through translation
become “obligatory passage points” for streams of knowledge, power, influence, information
etc. The starting point for ANT is to define and follow the actor’s endeavours in ordering the
interactions and relations in a way that brings him/her in a position of being the translator of
the others. ANT regards society as heterogeneous networks in which all kinds of processes
take place. Society consists not only of people, but also of animals, machines, texts, buildings,
computers – any material that can be imagined.
The fisherman and the fisheries are such a patterned network, with fish, knowledge,
organisations, technologists, management bodies, etc; all elements representing differently
patterned networks mixed together through alliances between other heterogeneous entities.
This process of mixing and holding things together is actually the translation, and through
this translation process the essence and meaning of the entities are produced.
When changes occur in the fisheries, the relations between the actors changes as well,
and new definitions of problems, actors, knowledge, essences, and meanings are produced.
An important aim is to demonstrate how practices in fisheries are expressed and formulated
through the symbolic system of knowledge and to show how the relationship and the
connections between the symbolic system of knowledge and practices are established through
a wide range of actions, especially linked to formulation of politics and to technological
change. The questions are addressed through qualitative methods, such as document analysis
and interviews.
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The fisherman that disappeared
In modern social theory three major strategies have been used for studies of humans and
society. These strategies have been based on three different sets of ideas or understandings of
the relationship between society and humans. The understandings have been formulated as
applied models of actors and agency. The first is an individualistic, rational actor model, the
second is a structuralistic actor model, and the third is a dialectical, social actor model. These
three understandings can also be identified in a translated form in social scientific research
about fishermen and fishing communities as: The Rational Fisherman, the World in the
Fisherman and the Fisherman in the World.
The fisherman became the central actor in the Norwegian fisheries during the 1930s,
when an institutional system was created to secure the fishing population’s rights and
interests. The wish to improve the welfare, to release the fishing population from the
unpredictable and unstable Nature, and to develop more a profitable fishing sector, served as
major arguments for the efforts to modernise the fisheries in Norway. In the 1930s three
different models for modernisation of the fisheries were launched: A private capitalistic
model, an industrial, structuralistic model, and a co-operative model. These three models,
which together formed the basis for the formulation of fishing policy during the next 60 years,
used the three understandings about the fishermen as rhetorical strategies, and as means for
integrating the fisheries policy and the fishing sector into a machinery for modernisation in
the Norwegian society. The development of the fisheries policy is used as an example and as a
representative for this machinery. The thesis shows how the political goals change among the
three development models and the difficulties in establishing a consensus about goals and
solutions in the fishing policy. The fisheries policy in Norway, up to the end of the 1980s, can
be described as a struggle between defenders of the three development models and the
respective rhetoric strategies that are used. The struggle ends with the breakdown of the stock
of Atlantic cod in 1989, when the Resource Management model finally can be introduced as
the main model for formulation and implementation of fishing policy. From 1990 the fishing
sector in Norway undergoes a total transformation with this model as the ideological and
scientific basis.
Even though there has been a consensus among the fishing population about the need
for stabilisation of resource fluctuations and improved welfare for the people, the means and
measures have been disputed. A major problem in the modernisation of Norwegian fisheries
has been the necessity to make endless compromises between goals and means based on the
different understandings of the fisherman. Consequently, several of the goals and means in the
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fisheries policy have been in conflict. The Resource Management model solves this problem.
The model uses the rationalistic understanding of the fisherman as the ideological reason for
the implementation of the structuralistic ideas and methods for regulation and control of the
individual rationality which, as the supporters of the model claim, represents a threat against
the natural resources. Regulation and control is a must in securing society’s common interests.
As a consequence of the acceptance of this claim by the politicians, the management
system and the fisheries interests, Modernity can finally permeate the fisheries and a strong
scientific, political and technical network can be built around a fishing policy, which actually
becomes integrated into the Machinery of Modernisation. The unpredictable human fisherman
is sorted out from the fisheries network, and replaced by heterogeneous and complex relations
between, science, technology, politics, and economics. Only those humans who accept and are
able to establish relations that link them to, or give them a position as actor or allied in the
network, remain inside. The human disappears from the fisheries; parallel to this process of
depopulation, the fisheries become overpopulated by the hybrids that form the new cyborg
fisher. | en |
English
norsk