Abstract
The concern of this article is the language and ontology of negative externalities. Four discourses on the financially successful industry of salmon farming in Norway are critically analyzed and deconstructed. The discourses are: "high turnover discourse", "technology optimism discourse", "first nature discourse" and "traditionalist discourse". Groups defending various discourses differ in their interpretations of a) human/nature relations i.e. either ecocentric, anthropocentric or biocentric, and b) in their respective approach to either a transformative, adaptive or reactive logic. By linking interpretations, concepts and logic inherent to these discourses, it is possible to make conclusions on their degree of coherency. The leading discourses are maintained in language through strategic framing and overdetermination. These linguistic mechanisms are revealed in the discursive application of the concepts of sustainability and wild fish. Rather than to surrender to relativism, the article recommends integration of realism and deconstruction.Key words: Atlantic salmon farming, food production, critical discourse analysis, negative externalities, soft constructionism, parsimony, political ecology, sustainability.
Highlights
I undertake a critical discourse analysis on how divergent perceptions of human/nature relations exist in the industrial practice of Atlantic salmon farming in Norway
Smith (1992:73) expresses the following nuance: "With a concept of scale as produced, it is possible to avoid on the one hand the relativism that treats spatial differentiation as a mosaic, and on the other to avoid a reified and uncritical division of scales that repeats a fetishism of space." If we were to reach the point where human activities are confronted with a hypothetical "last Atlantic salmon argument" – i.e. that the continuation of specific regional activities with negative externalities were the cause of the elimination of returning Atlantic salmon in the last locations of their breeding rivers, the problem, 'scales up' from the region to become global in terms of the moral obligations towards sustaining aspecies
The analysis presents the essence of debates on salmon farming found in Norwegian newspapers, in TV documentaries and conferences, and some of the core issues raised by parliamentary discussions and outspoken scientists
Summary
I undertake a critical discourse analysis on how divergent perceptions of human/nature relations exist in the industrial practice of Atlantic salmon farming in Norway. While the practice of Atlantic salmon farming is extensively analyzed from both financial and biological perspectives, there is no literature on how discourses on the industry are constructed through the dialectics existing between particular groups and actors, and the language they accept and apply. The Norwegian aquaculture "pioneer" environment of the 1950s and 1960s had a horizontal and fragmented firm structure, marked by creative and entrepreneurial objectives (Aslesen et al 2002). It was the result of decades of local experimentation and incremental development of technologies. Negative externalities of food production exist formally trained engineers in the Norwegian salmon farming industry." 2 the undergraduate degree program in Aqua-engineering at Bergen University College was terminated in 2011 due to a lack of students
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