Enduring Capitalism: Instability, Precariousness, and Cycles of Change in an Alaskan Salmon Fishery

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, I examine producers’ interpretations of economic downturn in an Alaskan commercial fishery to shed light on how workers endure ongoing capitalist vicissitudes and how capitalism itself endures. I focus on Alaska's salmon industry, which has weathered many ups and downs. In the early 2000s, despite strong wild salmon populations, the industry struggled as salmon prices sank to new lows. Drawing on ethnographic research in Bristol Bay, where most residents identify as Alaska Native, I show how salmon producers withstood volatile economic cycles by looking to ecological cycles, particularly the region's salmon returns, to interpret the fluctuations of capitalism and envision a future both within and beyond it. While fishers expressed senses of precariousness during the downturn through metaphors of extinction, they also undertook efforts to “reinvent” the industry, identifying in salmon cycles their own capacity to continue. Highlighting how dramatic ecological fluxes tune Bristol Bay producers to recurring change, I argue that this case reveals a more general pattern by which workers become oriented to ongoing instability. As they draw on experiences forged beyond the terms of capitalism to engage within it, their responses help maintain its cycles but also bolster their ability to persist in its midst. [crisis, capitalism, natural resources, fishing, Alaska]