Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the relationship between fish and fishing architecture during the 19th/ 20th century in North Atlantic. Investigating how fishing techniques mirror the behaviour activities of fish, thus placing the fish at the centre of the interaction rather than humans in a global context.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the development and evolution of different types of fishing techniques from the perspective of the organic and ecologically determined behaviour of bluefin tuna. Our understanding and ability to adapt to these behaviours is shaped to the prism of human technology like fishing nets, fishing vessels and even the associated terrestrial architecture. In essence a fishing landscape reflects the movements and behaviours of fish, but its impact upon fish populations ends up unbalancing their relation, becoming asymmetrical. These dynamics are quite visible in a species that migrates across the Atlantic and that faces fisheries from both the European (Algarve Portugal) and American coasts (Maine USA). These have increased exponentially, to the point of challenging the survival of the bluefin tuna as a species. Yet despite the technological leaps of the industrial revolution some forms of antique artisanal fishing continued and use during this period. These practices not only had a lesser impact on ecosystems in terms of species exploitation but also tended to contribute to the preservation of local biodiversity, a correlation that continues to be observed today. Thus, we intend to relate fish population dynamics to the built forms of fishing practices in two specific cases-locations, considering both large-scale fisheries and small-scale ones. In this way, we will seek to identify the symmetries and asymmetries between bluefin tuna populations and the built environment, as an original portrait of the interaction between humans and fish in a broader global context.