[Last modified: October, 6 2024 11:10 PM]
TOPIC: Human-animal relations in whaling practices in Iceland
Themes – Conservation, marine biology, human-animal interactions
Why is it important? – This topic is incredibly relevant as Iceland, along with Norway and Japan, are the only countries to allow legal commercial whaling still today. However, the focus has mostly been on conservationist organisations and their efforts against whaling practices, with little attention paid to those who daily engage in those practices.
How is this topic anthropological or ethnographic? Anthropology traditionally engages with grey areas of research – “the ineffable, the strange, and the hidden side of things”, as Nancy Scheper-Hughes would say (2020:11). In this particular context, our discipline has the potential to offer a different perspective that is usually overlooked when talking about conservation and could reveal interesting insights. Many examples in applied anthropological literature show how all the stakeholders should be included when thinking about policy-making and conservation plans, and whalers are directly involved in what conservationists in Iceland are trying to stop.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS: How do hunters relate to whales in Iceland? How are tensions between hunters and conservationists being played out?
Are they open questions? They are “how” questions and can lead to further exploration without being dismissed with a yes/no answer.
Are they anthropological, ethnographic, and actionable? They can be answered through ethnographic fieldwork and are anthropological, although they still lack some anthropological theory (with possible insights from maritime anthropology and multispecies ethnographies).
METHODS: Participant observation, semi-structured interviews
Methods considered – Participant observation on a ship would reveal unique insights given that it is not a “fixed” field site. It would allow me to look directly at the interactions I am interested in and experience them myself. I would also conduct semi-structured interviews with both hunters/fishermen from Hvalur hf. (the only active Icelandic whaling company as of today) and members of conservation organisations in Iceland, allowing participants to lead the questions.
Ethical/access issues – Getting access to the field site would be difficult as I do not have any personal connection to these organisations. A reconnaissance of the potential field sites might be needed to assess whether it would be possible to get a contact. An obvious limitation of this research would be the language. An Icelandic translator would represent a trade-off between losing the nuances that one only gets when mastering a language and gaining access to places that might be difficult to access without an insider, e.g. possibly male-dominated spaces like whaling ships.
REFERENCES: Scheper-Hughes, N. (2020) “The Organs Watch files: A brief history”, Public Anthropologist, 2(1), pp. 1-36.