Sockeye at the Boundary: Controversial and Contested Salmon in the Cohen Commission, 2009-2012

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dc.contributor.advisorAlsop, Steven John
dc.contributor.authorSutherland, Callum Christopher James
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-06T12:52:31Z
dc.date.available2021-07-06T12:52:31Z
dc.date.copyright2021-04
dc.date.issued2021-07-06
dc.date.updated2021-07-06T12:52:31Z
dc.degree.disciplineScience & Technology Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractIn this STS dissertation, I build on the controversy studies literature by opening the black box that is the Cohen Report, thereby illuminating the various forms taken by, and contestations associated with, controversial salmon in the Cohen Commission, 2009-2012, a federal inquiry into the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River of British Columbia, Canada. In this empirical study, I ask: (i) What are the primary sources of controversy in the Fraser River fishery? (ii) What salmon controversies are revealed through the social-life of sockeye, and how do they compare to those depicted in the Cohen Reports overview of the life-cycle of sockeye? (iii) What factors contributed to the (de)legitimation of particular understandings of controversial salmon during the Cohen Commission? To address these questions, I employed a three-phase, multi-method approach which involved (I) collecting qualitative data in the field; (II) creating a map from these data; and (III) using this map to analyze the social lives of various human and non-human actors. My primary research findings (1-9) shed new light on various salmon controversies, including those arising from (1) Indigenous responses to the ongoing experience of colonial violence and dispossession, (2) an ethic of exploitation oriented towards establishing and maintaining dominion over nature, (3) the prevailing view that fish (and fishing) are principally vehicles for economic growth and financial profit, and (4) the local effects of anthropogenic climate change. I also found that (5) these controversies are largely minimized by the Cohen Reports life-cycle overview, which reduces the sockeye life-cycle to a series of physiological transformations loosely connected to the particulars of place. During the Cohen Commission, salmon controversies were (de)legitimated through (6) the boundary work of expertise, (7) the Commissions emphasis on efficiently neutralizing contention, and (8) differing assessments concerning the importance of place. This resulted in the production of a controversial blueprint for closurei.e., the Cohen Reportwhich (9) called for the production of knowledge and ignorance in relation to the impacts of salmon farming, accentuating the importance of attending to generative symmetry, this dissertations foremost contribution to the STS controversy studies literature.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/38492
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectFisheries and aquatic sciences
dc.subject.keywordsActor-network theory
dc.subject.keywordsAgnotology
dc.subject.keywordsAnimal studies
dc.subject.keywordsAquaculture
dc.subject.keywordsBoundary objects
dc.subject.keywordsBoundary work
dc.subject.keywordsBritish Columbia
dc.subject.keywordsBroughton Archipelago
dc.subject.keywordsCohen Commission
dc.subject.keywordsColonialism
dc.subject.keywordsCommission of inquiry
dc.subject.keywordsControversial fish
dc.subject.keywordsControversy studies
dc.subject.keywordsCounter-mapping
dc.subject.keywordsDFO
dc.subject.keywordsExpertise
dc.subject.keywordsFeminist STS
dc.subject.keywordsFirst Nations
dc.subject.keywordsFish controversies
dc.subject.keywordsFish pluralities
dc.subject.keywordsFisheries and Oceans Canada
dc.subject.keywordsFisheries biology
dc.subject.keywordsFraser River
dc.subject.keywordsFraser River fishery
dc.subject.keywordsHuman-fish relations
dc.subject.keywordsIndigenous knowledge
dc.subject.keywordsNeoliberalism
dc.subject.keywordsOncorhynchus nerka
dc.subject.keywordsPacific salmon
dc.subject.keywordsPostcolonial technoscience
dc.subject.keywordsSalmon farming
dc.subject.keywordsSalmon studies
dc.subject.keywordsScience studies
dc.subject.keywordsScience technology and society
dc.subject.keywordsScience and technology studies
dc.subject.keywordsSocial life of things
dc.subject.keywordsSociology of scientific knowledge
dc.subject.keywordsSockeye salmon
dc.subject.keywordsTraditional ecological knowledge
dc.titleSockeye at the Boundary: Controversial and Contested Salmon in the Cohen Commission, 2009-2012
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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