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Short abstract:

Through a study of Norwegian policy documents on the Pacific oyster, and with a focus on different understandings of origin, belonging and movement, this paper explores how authorities navigate the tension between stopping an invasive alien and turning the same species into an economic resource.

Long abstract:

Through a study of Norwegian policy reports on the Pacific oyster, this paper explores how the promotion of oysters as resource and luxury food produces a discrepancy between a biological discourse, where the Pacific oyster will always be “pacific”, and an economic one, which centres on the origin of each individual oyster.

So-called “invasive alien species” are suffering from the expectation that all living creatures except humans should stay put. They are considered a problem because humans have moved them to new places, away from where they evolved. Many species defined as invasive aliens are, however, farmed or cultivated by humans in areas where they are non-native. These species are both economically important and ecologically problematic at the same time. In Europe, the Pacific oyster is one such species.

While Norwegian environmental authorities focus on the alienness of the Pacific oyster, other authorities make efforts to turn it into a local delicacy, partly through the concept of “merroir”. Merroir is for seafood what terroir is for wine, it describes the way in which locality influences the taste of the oyster. The concept challenges the idea that the species’ place of origin is more important than the individual’s, but also moves the oyster from living animal to cultivated product. Thus, understandings of movement are central both in producing Pacific oysters as an environmental problem and in turning them into manageable resources, although the oysters’ ability to move and adapt always seems to end up becoming their misfortune.