When the Fish Ignore the Market

Abstract

What can fishers do if the fish ignore the laws of the market? In market-based fisheries, skippers and quota-owners are confronted not only with the unknown futures of investments and exchange in markets, but with multiple, in particular institutional, technological and ecological uncertainties stemming from the broader political, techno-scientific and ecological entanglements of market-based resource management regimes. Using the example of the ‘haddock crisis’, this chapter demonstrates how fishers skilfully adjust their socio-technical world in order to adjust the market with the flows of the sea. Accordingly, three coping practices are deployed: tinkering with accounts, socio-technical conversion and redefining boundaries. While these practices allow fishers to stay afloat in the highly volatile world of market-based resource management, they tend to be undermined by the flows of the sea, spurring a continuos cycle of investments and socio-technical breakdowns.