ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

All aboard the Akademik Knipovich: Soviet Fisheries Research, International Organizations and the Cold War of the Sea

• In Event: Governing the Seas: Ocean Science, International Law, and the Contested Politics of the Post-War Ocean (2 of 2)

English Abstract

This paper explores how, during the 1960s, Soviet fisheries research vessels were used by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as innovative sites for training courses in fisheries techniques offered to officials and scientists from the developing world. These seminars on board active vessels allowed FAO and Soviet officials to work together to find new species and commerical fishing grounds, and to share knowledge that would improve the efficiency of fishing globally, even though USSR never joined the FAO. Based on materials from the FAO archives, the paper centers on the discoveries made during a series of tours held on the Akademik Knipovich in the Mediterranean Sea, and one consequential 1968 visit by the vessel’s experts to the FAO’s headquarters in Rome. The paper reveals the co-creation of fishing knowledge by Soviet scientists and fisheries workers, fisheries experts from North African countries, and international representatives of the FAO, all in cooperation with the marine species they sought to fish. The shared knowledge that was created and put to use on the Akademik Knipovich and beyond can help us understand how Soviet fisheries science became embedded in the international scientific community, and how Soviet ideas were mobilized in the service of the sometimes conflicting ideals of development and international organization in the era of the Cold War and shifting oceanic regulation.

Author

• Elizabeth Banks, University of Edinburgh