Fishers and Scientists in Modern Turkey

"The book is well organized and the study follows smoothly from one chapter to the next offering a well-informed analysis of the nature-culture dichotomy on the Eastern Black Sea coast...This book's inter-disciplinary approach should make it appealing to an array of audiences from fisheries scientists and managers to environmental historians and cultural geographers." · H-Environment


"...[in this] well written book Knudsen delivers an intriguing study about the meaning of the fish, the fishing activity as a way of life, and the culture of the fishermen. His ability to explain the culture and the life and hard work of Turkish fishers is outstanding." · Environmental History


Through the ethnography and history of fish production, seafood consumption, state modernizing policies and marine science, this book analyzes the role of local knowledge in the management of marine resources on the Eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey. Fishing, science and other ways of knowing and relating to fish and the sea are analyzed as particular ways of life conditioned by history, ideology and daily practice. The approach adopted here allows for a broader analysis of the role knowledge plays in the management of common pool resources (CPR) than is provided in much of the contemporary CPR debate that tends to have a somewhat narrow focus on institutions and rules. By contrast, the author argues that also local knowledge and the larger historical and ideological context of production, as manifest in state modernization policies and consumption patterns, should be taken into account when trying to explain the current management regime in Turkish Black Sea fisheries.


Ståle Knudsen is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen. He has spent extended periods doing fieldwork among Turkish Black Sea fishers. He is currently leading a working group on the Black Sea as part of an EU-funded project entitled "Knowledge-based Sustainable Management for Europe's Seas".