Presentation short abstract

The research discusses the introduction of invasive carp species in the Danube river of Romania and Bulgaria, undertaking the notion of "multispecies deep mapping" to explore the histories, movements, traces and stories of fish and fisherman.

Presentation long abstract

The Danube River has shaped human and nonhuman interactions of the Balkan populations since antiquity. The political economies of 20th century (Dorondel, 2016) have reshaped the traditional ontologies of fish and fishing with the arrival of new species such as the American catfish, Chinese carp, and various freshwater shrimp from the Amur River that are now replacing Danube’s indigenous species. The research discusses the introduction of three invasive species – grass carp, silver carp and bighead carp in Romania and Bulgaria during the Socialist regime (1960-s) and the ways they reshape the local ecologies, knowledge, food cultures and resources. Fish and fishermen, in this process, are examined via their own stories, which overlap and interact in time and space (in the land-water interface, Pauwelussen and Verschoor, 2017) to shape knowledge and ways of knowing of human and nonhuman worlds. Undertaking the notion of deep mapping as a “cartography of depth” and a way of “diving within” (Roberts, 2016) the research offers an exploration of these worlds in a form of “multispecies deep maps”, a result of “observing, listening, conversing, and exchanging” information with fishermen, biologists and ultimately fish, following and mapping their histories, movements, traces and stories along the Danube river of Romania and Bulgaria.