Transforming the fisheries : the politics of environmental sustainability

Abstract

This thesis looks at the current transformations in the Irish and European fisheries as a way of critically examining the politics of environmental sustainability. It begins by analysing how the crisis of the fisheries is being framed within fisheries management and the new forms of power this gives rise to. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork carried out in a commercial fishing port in Ireland I describe and analyse how fishermen and the marine environment are being enrolled within a particular narrative of sustainability and how they escape it through everyday, continuous experience. I begin by outlining how the crisis in the fisheries is being framed in biological terms and how this generates new forms of power over the marine environment. Analysing this development through Foucault's concept of biopolitics I describe how fishermen are increasingly subject to new forms of policing within a discourse of 'responsibilisation'. The consequence of these transformations is the displacement of existing value and relations through the imposition of a bio-economic rationality. At the same time the common goal of preserving fish stocks opens new spaces for participatory, inclusive governance. Fishermen are identified as valuable 'stakeholders' engaging with state and non-state actors in order to reach mutually agreed and effective solutions to local problems. I argue that this represents the post-politics of environmental sustainability. The apparent absence of any single authority claiming to represent nature creates the impression that all that is needed is better governance in order to move towards a common, sustainable future. While there appears to be greater inclusion and participation these forms of consensus decision making close down the need for vital questions about the kind of sustainable natures we might want.