Paper short abstract:

The paper explores local knowledge about marine resources and its relations with scientific knowledge in Kihnu Island, Estonia. I will demonstrate how knowledge circulation has affected local practices and power relations in the seascape and how managing the sea is negotiated today.

Paper long abstract:

The seascape around Kihnu Island is a place where islander's identity and their livelihoods are continuously circulated with the discourse of conservation regulations and state power. The sea has been a source of social formation and inspiration for cultural life but also a place where knowledge is circulated. This paper will show that rather than suppressing local knowledge, scientific knowledge is unstable and fragile and the circulation of different agencies in the sea continuously create and transform the knowledge about the marine resources into socially accepted knowledge. In a situation where locals in Kihnu Island struggle to invoke their cultural identity and local ways to manage marine resources, while conservation officials contend with EU regulations, state legislations and unstable bureaucracy, the knowledge about the sea is constantly been recreated and transformed. Circulation is a process where past events, the changing environment, and various groups and agencies interact and negotiate. Thus, circulation of discourse creates, transforms and changes local and scientific knowledge thru interactions and negotiations in the seascape.

This paper has two aims. First, I suggest that local environmental knowledge is never discovered or invented but created through circulation of social interactions and human encounters in the past and at the present. Second, I show how the circulation of local knowledge is woven into contemporary discussions about conservation, protecting endangered species and controlling fisheries.