Into the wild and back again : hatching 'wild salmon' in western Norway

Abstract

This thesis is based on five and a half months of fieldwork in Voss, Norway, where I worked fulltime as a volunteer at the local hatchery, learning to produce the Vosso salmon, Vossolaksen.

Salmon has been important for coastal communities in Norway for many years, but the relationship between the humans and the fish are changing. While the rise of aquaculture have drastically increased the number of farmed salmon living in pens along the coast, the population of wild salmon in the rivers are decreasing. The situation has caused a counterproductive public debate fuelled by the dichotomies of the wild and the farmed salmon.

The Vosso salmon, Vossolaks, were on the brink of extinction, but has been enrolled in collaboration project between public management, salmon researchers, the local hatchery and the aquaculture industry, all working together to re-establish the Vossolaks salmon strain.

Through a focus on salmon-in-the-making, this thesis gives an empirical account of the lives of the current Vossolaks and show how it is enrolled in a network of humans, non-humans and technologies while still maintaining its status as a wild fish. Furthermore, the thesis seeks to be a moderate contribution to the continuous discussions about binary oppositions and the deconstruction of these.