Frictions: Europe, America and global Transformations - Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Creator: Brunnbauer, Ulf
Title: Congealed Labor, Preserved Fish:
Subtitle: From the Adriatic towards a global history of the canned sardine
DOI: 10.15457/frictions/0025
Description:
Fish have been actors in international disputes for centuries, from the Hundred Years War through a “Cod War” in the Cold War-era to Brexit negotiations. Ulf Brunnbauer explores why not only the big, valuable fish, such as tuna and salmon, but also the relative small fry of sardines can offer an illustration of the changing history of global capitalism and experiences of economic change. He traces the entanglements of human, environmental and multi-species histories. His essay stresses the interconnections of local agency and external forces, nature and resource exploitation, and networks and historical ruptures. He also highlights the significance of gender relations in the canned fish industry. As he argues, the history of canned sardines can be written into the larger narratives of modernization, industrialization, exploitation of humans and degradation of nature. At the same time, it never completely tallies with any of these larger stories but involves ambiguities and surprising turns. But what else could we expect when such volatile creatures like humans and sardines make history?
Date of publication: 2023-17-01
Subjects: Adriatic, California, Cannery Row, Ulf Brunnbauer, area studies, entanglements, environment, environmental history, fish, gender relations, global history, industry, oral history, sardines
Section: Essays
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