Paper short abstract:

This paper is about the recommodification of Atlantic salmon from commercial species to matchless game fish. This shift was achieved, I argue, through strategies of economization and commensuration. The paper points to the work involved in the recommodification of objects and things.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is about the commodification of Atlantic salmon in Eastern Canada. But it is not about how salmon were first commodified as a commercial fish that was caught, processed and exported to other parts of North America and Europe. Instead, I focus on the process through which salmon was recommodified from commercial species to a game fish valued for its role in supporting a recreational angling industry and a growing tourist sector. The recommodification of salmon was not a simple or straightforward process and involved work and effort by an increasingly powerful and elite angling community that spanned several decades. The efforts by the angling community focused on two key processes that are central to STS thinking: economization and commensuration. The commercial sector for Atlantic salmon was shown to be economically inefficient, wasteful and exploitative of a species that was increasingly under threat of extinction. In contrast, the salmon game fish was promoted as a form of commodification that was significantly more valuable, efficient and promised to be more sustainable for the Atlantic salmon. Drawing on reports, government documents and archival sources, I show how these arguments become increasingly more convincing to Canadian government fishery officials who eventually impose a moratorium on commercial harvesting and announce Atlantic salmon as 'matchless game fish'. The paper points to the work and the strategies involved in the recommodification of objects and things through processes of economization and commensuration.