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Fishing with empathy: knowing fish and catching them on the Kemi River in Finnish Lapland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Franz Krause
Franz Krause*
Affiliation:
Tallinna Ülikool, Eesti Humanitaarinstituut, Uus-Sadama 5, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia ([email protected])
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Abstract

This paper develops an argument on the empathetic relationship between hunter and prey, as applied to the relations between small-scale fishers and fish. Drawing on ethnographic material from the Kemi River, and recent work on fishing, it suggests that although fishers often do not see the fish, they know their whereabouts and movements through an empathetic engagement with the fish. People on the Kemi do not see fish as merely the animal itself, but include in their empathetic relationship the behaviour and environment of the fish. An analysis of popular fishing techniques used subsequently illustrates that they represent what can be called an inversion of the fish's life story.

Type
Northern fisheries
Information
Polar Record , Volume 50 , Issue 4: Northern Fisheries , October 2014 , pp. 354 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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