ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Contested Fishscapes: Fisheries, Science, and Development in the Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

The twentieth century witnessed unprecedented attempts to harness fisheries for commercial, developmental, and nutritional ends, intensifying scientific and governmental interventions into marine and freshwater environments. This panel brings together three papers that examine how fisheries science became entangled with broader projects of development and governance across diverse oceanic and colonial spaces with highly variable outcomes. The papers chart how scientific programmes intersected with competing visions of technology, nutrition, and natural resource management across governments, institutions, and communities in Africa, Newfoundland, and the Caribbean. First, L. Sasha Gora traces how technologies of preservation—from salt to flash-freezing—shaped Atlantic codscapes and the regulatory frameworks governing Caribbean and Newfoundland cuisines. Next, David Wilson explores networks of fisheries knowledge across the late colonial British empire, interrogating how development visions interacted with colonial law, local practice, and emerging technologies. Finally, Elizabeth Banks examines how Soviet fisheries science became embedded in international development programmes, revealing scientific collaboration and conflicting ideals of development and regulation in the era of the Cold War. Together, they interrogate how scientific expertise was produced, circulated, and contested—whether through international collaboration across Cold War divides, through tensions between knowledge and practice in colonial settings, or through the technologies that reshaped culinary traditions. By placing Atlantic culinary cultures, British colonial development, and Soviet international programmes in conversation, the panel invites reflection on how these twentieth-century entanglements continue to shape contemporary debates over marine governance, food security, and environmental knowledge.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• David Wilson, University of Strathclyde

Individual Presentations

• Time and Temperature and Salt: Caribbean Codscapes in Three Acts - L. Sasha Gora, University of Augsburg

• Charting the Currents of Knowledge, Technology, and Regulation in British Colonial Fisheries Development - David Wilson, University of Strathclyde

• Fishing across the Curtain: Soviet Fisheries Science as International Development - Elizabeth Banks, University of Edinburgh