Paper short abstract:

Our study analyzes the discourse of actors linked to innovation in aquaculture and local fishing, in order to assess the ways they have to assume the consequences of their activity. As we will see, the very different forms of responsibility between them could be an important blind spot of fisheries policies

Paper long abstract:

Innovation has become a concept widely used and extended in the discourse of modern societies (Godin 2008). In the specific field of marine affairs, however, It draws attention to the unequal relationship that it has with two very high profile international phenomena: aquaculture and coastal fisheries. As we will discuss in our case study focused on the region of Valencia, this difference could also be closely related, with the different way the actors of both activities have to take responsibility for the consequences they produce. Through a qualitative approach to their discourses and guided by various studies of STS (Stilgoe, Owen & Macnaghten 2013; Von Schomberg 2013) and sociology of science (Lizcano 2009, Wynne 2002), we find that those aquaculture, holders of a scientific techno knowledge in which they often speaks of innovation, link these consequences to the abstract idea of human progress (massive responsibility). Inshore fishermen, owners of local traditional knowledge in which the word innovation is not mentioned, enroll the effects of their practices in the game of specific power relations which involves their daily activity (collective responsibility). The thin line that separates them -on either position- from making irresponsible practices, teaches us the difficulties to find common solutions in the field of social and environmental sustainability of the coastal ecosystem