Fishing in murky waters—ethics and politics of research on fisher knowledge

doi:10.1016/S0308-597X(01)00045-8

Marine Policy

Volume 26, Issue 3, May 2002, Pages 159-166

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(01)00045-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

Fisher knowledge is increasingly seen as an important source of information for the management of fisheries and sought by both academics and managers. With reference to interviews with Norwegian fishers I will discuss problematic ethical and methodological aspects of such documentation. Fisher knowledge is embedded in a social and cultural context and transfer of knowledge is relational. Fisher knowledge is a professional asset, and contains information that is often known only to a small group of local people. Transferring fisher knowledge to science and management the question is what it implies for fishers to have their knowledge moved beyond its traditional borders.

Introduction

Interviewing a fisher on his use of the local area, I exclaimed: “This is wonderful! Imagine publishing a map showing your use of home waters! Both academics and management lack knowledge of local use patterns and local natural resources!” The fisher was not as enthusiastic, however. He said: “No, I don’t want you to do that!”

This is the theme of this paper—publishing and publicizing fisher knowledge. Commercial exploitation of indigenous knowledge has achieved increased attention during the 1990s, and researchers have proposed establishing contracts between the indigenous knowledge holders and others who require to use this knowledge for commercial purposes. But what about other types of use; for instance, the use of knowledge for research or management? And what about other informal knowledge systems that are less politicized than indigenous knowledge? What are the rights and duties that apply to fisher knowledge, gathered today by researchers, coastal zone planners and other interested parties?

My reason for problematizing these issues is my own involvement in a project on gathering fisher knowledge for the purpose of enhancing the knowledge pool for managing the fisheries. One could say the project has been a success; I now possess a detailed inventory of local fish distribution and its presence in time and space. I can write articles showing other researchers and fishery bureaucrats the value of interviewing fishers. I could also produce the Christmas book of the year: “Where to fish along the Finnmark coast”. As Norway has around 224 000 fish tourists [1], the market value of such a book is large.

However, I wrote only one article about local fish resources and will never write a Christmas book for fish tourists. Instead, I am deeply concerned about both “my knowledge”, as well as other researchers’ fisher knowledge. As many researchers and other interested parties currently seek fisher knowledge I think the role of science and the role of knowledge politics involved in such projects need be focused.

I will start by presenting my project as well as presenting the use of fisher knowledge. Then, in focusing on dilemmas of publicizing, I will describe the dilemmas of the scientists and fishers, respectively. Finally, I shall show how we solved our dilemmas as well as point out other solutions on how to handle the meeting between science and fisher knowledge.

Section snippets

Gathering fisher knowledge in Northern Norway

Scientific knowledge on coastal resources in Norway is currently being developed. Stock assessment research has for long focused on ocean-going stocks in Norway, beyond the 12 nautical miles line. Consequently, knowledge of ocean-going stocks has formed the basis for the national fisheries policies and calculations of national fish stocks. Stocks differ in their biological characteristics with respect to growth, recruitment, etc. From a biological point of view, management should be based on

Fisher knowledge

The focus on fish resources and their local presence in time and space showed that fishers used the areas differently during the year. One particular use characterized the spring and another the autumn. Different persons also used the areas. In some places, the same persons had been using one and the same area for many years. The maps made during the interviews hold information on the designated sea space and its various biological resources, as well as social aspects—how the various local

Expanding the use of fisher knowledge

Fisher knowledge is used not only for the commercial purpose of catching fish, but also for regulating the relationship between each other. Fisher knowledge has for long had a minimal role in research and fisheries management. However, in recent years, there has been an increased research interest in using fisher knowledge for management of fish stocks, not only for fishing them. Over-fishing and depleted fish stocks have shown that science and state bureaucracy do no longer appear as a

The science dilemma

In approaching fisher knowledge, science and management encounters a knowledge system they until now have had little knowledge about. As the knowledge of fishers is to be used as a means for good management, fisher oral knowledge is to be written down, for everyone to read, and no longer only transferred according to local rules and regulations. Herein lies the crux of the science dilemma: What will this mean to fisher knowledge—a knowledge that until now has been managed by themselves and

The fisher dilemma

Our project was important to fishers. As fisher knowledge has been long ignored by fishery scientists they were grateful for the opportunity to share their knowledge in a face-to-face interaction with interested fishery scientists. They appreciated talking to us. Although I was not allowed to publish his local sites, the fisher I referred to introductorily spoke openly about his use. The denial of publicizing this information came only after I had brought forward the problematic aspects of

Our dealing with dilemmas

In our project, we chose not to publish maps of local fishing sites and fish resources. However, we had lengthy discussions between ourselves as well as with colleagues and bureaucrats involved in coastal zone planning. We were given many good reasons for publishing the maps. The most common was that this knowledge was valuable for science. It needed to be published. Another argument was that fisher knowledge had historical value. Someone should record it. Since we had done so we should publish

Five ways to deal with the dilemmas

I still think gathering fisher knowledge is important though. So how can we go about dealing with the aspects I have talked about in this article? One approach is letting the informants read our texts and approve of our maps before we publish. Huntington [9] did this. He asked whether or not there were any aspects that the locals wanted to withhold from the publications. The answer was interesting when it came to the use of fisher knowledge. It is exactly fishing sites that attract attention.

Acknowledgments

I thank all the fishermen who by willingly sharing their knowledge made writing this paper possible. I also thank academic colleagues, especially Terje Brantenberg and Jan H. Sundet with whom I have had constructive and inspiring discussions on the matter at hand. Finally, I owe my gratitude to the Norwegian Research Council who provided financial support for this research.

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