Article ID: CBB001450163

In the Wake of Politics: The Political and Economic Construction of Fisheries Biology, 1860--1970 (2014)

unapi

Hubbard, Jennifer Mary (Author)


Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 105, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 364-378


Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: Part of a focus section on: “Focus: Knowing the Ocean: A Role for the History of Science”
Language: English

As an environmentally focused, applied field science, fisheries biology has recently been marked by its failed promise to enable sustainable exploitation. Fisheries biology's origin through state support raises many questions. How did fisheries biologists get this support? Did political considerations and economic ideals fundamentally shape the science? Why has it been perceived as fundamentally conservation oriented? New evidence indicates the political basis for Thomas Henry Huxley's contention that the deep-sea fisheries were inexhaustible; this essay shows how his influence extended to recent neoliberal resource management solutions. It also explores how fisheries biology acquired the ideal of maximum sustained yield (MSY) via Progressive Era efficiency conservation and German scientific forestry; how American Cold War foreign policy made this ideal paradigmatic of mid to late twentieth-century fisheries biology; and how emerging bioeconomics in the 1950s imposed a troublesome misunderstanding of fisheries biology's earlier mission.

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Article Rozwadowski, Helen M. (2014) Knowing the Ocean: A Role for the History of Science. Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 335-337). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001450163/

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Authors & Contributors
Keiner, Christine
Sandvik, Pål Thonstad
Espen Storli
Ragonese, Peppino
Hobæk, Bård
Doyle-Raso, John
Concepts
Natural resource management
Conservation of natural resources
Science and politics
Fisheries; fishing
Environmental history
Environmental sciences
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
18th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Places
United States
Canada
Norway
Maryland (U.S.)
Atlantic Ocean
Uganda
Institutions
UNESCO
United Nations
United States. National Park Service
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