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

In 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.
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\nIn 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?
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\nTo 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.
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\nMy 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.

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