Presentation short abstract

Morralla -small, edible Mediterranean fish historically devalued- shows how animals become socially produced as “waste.” Strategies to reduce or revalorise bycatch highlight its potential role in sustainable seafood futures.

Presentation long abstract

Morralla. 1. f. Worthless or of no value; 1. f. Mixture of small, assorted fish.

In Mediterranean fisheries, these meanings converge to describe a mix of small, edible species that have been historically devalued for economic, cultural, and culinary reasons. This reflects a utilitarian vision of nature in which only species generating stable profit are recognised as valuable, while others are relegated to marginal categories. Morralla thus exemplifies how animals become socially produced as “waste,” not through intrinsic qualities but through shifting economic, cultural, and institutional valuations.

Importantly, morralla is specifically Mediterranean, emerging from the region’s multispecies trawl fisheries. Morralla refers to the marketable fraction of bycatch, not to bycatch as a whole, which also includes protected or non-marketable species. It denotes the portion that enters the market in a marginal way and acquires a cultural semantic of “low value.”

There is no exact English translation. Automatic renderings as trash fish or whitebait are misleading: trash fish refers to species so undesirable they often end up as fishmeal, while whitebait denotes juvenile fish with high gastronomic value. These contrasts highlight morralla’s specificity as a Mediterranean configuration of value, marginality, and multispecies relations.

Sustainable fisheries debates hinge on two strategies: increasing gear selectivity to reduce bycatch (and thus morralla), or revalorising it through diversified consumption (potentially transforming, or erasing, the category). Examining how morralla species are classified, valued, and rendered invisible in research and management reveals broader “shadow ecologies” of marine waste animals and their potential repositioning in sustainable seafood futures.