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Accepted Paper:
Migrant Oysters: Exploring More Than Human Relations through Changing Ecosystems on the Swedish West Coast
Ivana Maček
(Stockholm University)
Pacific oysters have migrated to the Swedish West Coast some 15 years ago because of commercial aquafarming and climate change raising sea temperatures. They are referred to as “invasive foreign species”, but what new relations and changes did they cause in their new more-than-human environment?
Paper long abstract:
Crassostrea gigas or Magallana gigas, also known as Japanese or Pacific oysters, have migrated to the Swedish West Coast some 15 years ago. Reasons for this migration were both outer and inner: human import for commercial aquafarming in Europe, climate change raising sea temperatures, and the constitution of the oysters themselves. In Sweden, they are referred to as “invasive foreign species”, meaning that migration would not have been possible without human help and that they thrive better than some “endemic” species in their new environment, thus potentially threatening the extinction of the latter. But, what changes are the migrant oysters causing to their new ecosystem, and what are their possible futures?
Which new relationships between oysters and groups of humans have come out of this migration? What is the nature of these relationships? What economic and etic rationales do humans express, which new practices and emotions do they display? Which other non-human agents do newcomer oysters relate to in meaningful ways? What is the nature of these relationships? How can we develop the ethnographic emothod to include also the non-human phenomena? And in the end, how do we conceptualize the ethics of migration and survival in a more than human world?