Power and the Production of Science. Assessing Cod Stocks as the Mechanistic Fishery Collapses

Abstract

This paper discusses power relations in the production of knowledge claims and the validation of management strategies. The experience of doing stock assessment science and creating management plans for Canada’s east coast cod fishery illustrates this general process. We demonstrate that the cyborgization of fisheries-management is limited by its inability to produce power for stabilizing the relations between managers, fishers, technology and fish. Lack of stability forces scientists and managers either to ignore a threat or to intervene by changing their strategy. Consensus is unlikely. Scientists and managers must reconsider reasons for action or lack of it, thus producing a new rationality. Managers attempt to control that reconstruction process in the interests of resolving shortterm challenges. Some scientists resist change and protect their earlier positions against new evidence or re-interpretations. The winning rationality has more to do with the power of the claimant than with the quality of reasoning.