From the Barents Sea to the Japanese Dinner Plate

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From the Barents Sea to the Japanese Dinner Plate

The Agency and Adventures of the Snow Crab

Elisabeth Sjo Engen

Master’s Thesis - Modern Japan (60 credits) Spring 2018

THE UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS) Academic Advisor: Aike P. Rots

June 22^nd2018

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2018

From the Barents Sea to the Japanese Dinner Plate: The Adventures and Agency of the Snow Crab

Elisabeth Sjo Engen

http://www.duo.uio.no

Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo

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Abstract

In this thesis we will follow the snow crab on his adventures across the globe. It is a thesis with significant weight placed on discussions regarding the agency and interpretations of the snow crab’s role in different areas, cultures, situations and industries. Mainly we will explore his travel to and from the Barents Sea, Norway and Japan. I have conducted qualitative interviews with people from the snow crab industry, and gathered relevant literature and preexisting quantitative surveys to follow the snow crab as closely as possible. I will be using the theoretical framework of Actor-Network Theory to analyze my findings. In addition to revealing the path of the snow crab in and of itself, this thesis also seeks to explore the cultures he encounters, such as Japan’s food culture and its traditions.

In sum we will look at the how the tiny snow crab larvae, mysteriously, travels to the Barents Sea. Where, upon arrival, he first becomes an anomaly, then an invasive alien. He may cause sickness and death among the fishermen and factory workers he meets, or he might make them rich. He will go on to become a valuable commodity, yet become the main focus of an international dispute between Norway and the European Union. He will open the doors for us to notice disparities between him and other species. He will travel the world in ships, and arrive in a country were he is celebrated, yet deemed inferior to his Japanese cousins. But he will still be so great that imposters will make him a victim of identity theft. He will go on dates and become a memorable part of someone’s proposal, and maybe even their wedding.

Expect all this and more from the adventures and agency of the snow crab.

Key-words: Snow crab, invasive species, native species, aquaculture, Actor-Network Theory, agency, Norway, international trade, export-import, Japan, nature-culture, nationalism, food culture

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Preface

While finishing my bachelor’s degree in 2014 and 2015, I frequently googled “Crab Japan Norway”searching for a topic for the master’s degree I was planning to take. Since there were very few hits I eventually decided upon writing about salmon and the success of the

Norwegian salmon in Japan. It was not until after I had presented my thesis topic, in the fall 2016, that I googled “Crab Japan Norway” just to check, one last time, if Google could provide what I had really been looking for! In just under a year, Google had suddenly become abundant with articles on snow crab trade from Norway to Japan. At that point I was not yet familiar with the snow crab as opposed to the brown crab, but to a devoted crab lover, any crab is a great crab. I could have written about crab even if there was no connection there between Norway and Japan, but I wanted to do research in the academic field where I have some competence and with hopes and plans to work in the sector between these two countries someday, I felt a need to stay on topic. One might question why I should choose to write about crabs specifically. Well, I love crab and I always have. I still remember that as a child I was often called “krabbekongen” (the crab king) by relatives and family. However morbid this may sound, when it came to crab, and only crab, my stomach was a bottomless pit, and it still is. Furthermore, not only do I care for the crab as a dish, but also as a valuable being with agency and persistence. I also find them cute, and the more I have researched snow crab, the more I am amazed by their nature and the vastness of their impact on the world that

surrounds them.

The snow crab was discovered first discovered in the Russian zone of the Barents Sea in 1996 (Alvsvåg et al., 2009, p. 587), and now Russia is the leading exporter of snow crab to Japan (Japan Customs, no date). In the Norwegian zones the first snow crab was spotted in 2011, and had a rapid natural spread similar to the pattern seen in the Russian zones of the Barents Sea. This industry went from no crabs caught in 2011, to almost 10 000 tons in 2015, and some scientists estimated that Norwegian ships would be able to catch 100 000 tons of snow crab within the next five to ten years (Markedsrapport, 2015, p. 2). In 2017 the first official Norwegian crab quota was set, and the supply was drastically reduced 3061 tons (Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, 2017; Institute of Marine Research, 2018).

However, nothing seems to indicate that the supply will shrink any further, and there is still a considerable likelihood that this industry will continue to grow and become a sizable part of

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to find recent academic studies and research about the snow crab’s biology, impact on the ecology, its economic impact, and similar scientific topics such as: (Agnalt et al., 2011;

Elner & Beninger, 1992; Tiller & Nyman 2016; Nofima 2016; Siikavuopio et al., 2017;

Jørgensen & Spiridonov 2013). In this thesis I wanted to look at the crab as a socio-economic phenomenon, and its impact on the people, the culture surrounding it, international politics, and the life it encourages. As my tool of analysis and research I will use Actor-Network Theory.

Initially, as my Google search implies, I intended to base this thesis solely on the Norwegian snow crab trade between Norway and Japan, and the obstacles the Norwegian exporters and Japanese importers might encounter within the trade. However, when I arrived in Japan in the spring of 2017, I was exposed to a beautiful and fascinating snow crab culture. So I decided to learn as much as I could about Japanese crab traditions as well. Once I felt able to do research on the aforementioned topic in a satisfactory manner, I noticed that there were fewer obstacles than I had expected, so there was more scope to include more of the plentiful diversity of Japanese crab culture in my thesis. The culture in itself is very interesting to me, and it could be helpful for Norwegians to know more about it. In Norway we fish for

thousands of tons of snow crabs, yet we have very limited customs or knowledge about how to prepare, eat or market it. Snow crab is so totally new to Norway and Norwegian consumers that it is safe to assume that the regular consumer has not even heard of it. The way the snow crab appeared in the Barents Sea, and how it spread there turned out to be a quite fascinating story as well; and with the method of actor-network theory it seems natural to follow the unique storylines. With this in mind I made the decision to boraden the scope of my

research.I argue that mapping out and giving the reader insight of the Japanese aspect of the snow crab industry is beneficial to understanding the full picture. It was certainly helpful to me, and a great opportunity to indulge in Japan’s abundant crab culture and appreciation for this crustacean. As a result, I have spent almost two years thinking about, and living with, the snow crab, and it has been an adventure.

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Acknowledgements

Exactly one year of my study time was spent in Japan. The stay brought me both challenges and joyful experiences that I had never expected. As a graduate student I was expected to enter a weekly Japanese graduate seminar in order to receive guidance from a professor. I soon realized that this was not a regular graduate seminar that one might attend in Norway, but rather a bubble with its very own rituals, customs, and culture, which was an invaluable experience in itself, albeit one with very steep learning curve. While researching this industry I was surprised at how welcoming and helpful everyone was. My informants kindly offered a lot of their precious time to me, with no expectation of compensation or services in return from this wide-eyed and curious graduate student. I also had the privilege of being introduced to other potential informants, and was invited to luxurious and informative seafood seminars, attended exclusively by people in the industry, for free. Without the help of these kind actors, my field work would have not been nearly as fruitful. Had not my informants have been anonymized for this study I would thank them all by name. I want to thank Ann-Lisbeth Agnalt for sharing some of her insights with me, and being of great help to me.

I want to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Aike P. Rots, for continuously giving invaluable feedback, advice, and inspiration, and for introducing me to the vast and

exhilarating universe of Actor-Network Theory.

My parents also have been unwavering in their support. My mother, Toril Kristin Sjo, who has listened to my thoughts and qualms for endless hours and offered academic help,

strategies and motivation; and my father, Thore Engen, who has proof-read and displayed the most supportive and unconditional fatherly pride while I worked on this project.

And to the ITO foundation. Thank you for graciously granting me the generous scholarship towards my fieldwork in Japan, and for tirelessly cheering me on and always enthusiastically humouring me in my lengthy tirades about crabs.

Finally, I want to thank my uncle, Bjarne Sjo, for always supporting, respecting and

understanding my avid enthusiasm for crabs. Without him I would not have been exposed to such an abundance of Norway’s most delicious crab each summer while I was growing up, and I would never have known of their greatness. I am truly grateful to him for sparking this interest in me. Because of him I got the opportunity to research, and will hopefully someday work with, something I love. I cannot express my gratitude enough: Takk, Onkel Bjarne.

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List of abbreviations

ANT Actor-Network Theory

CAA Consumer Affairs Agency (Shōhishachō消費者庁) EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone

FHF The Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (Fiskeri - og havbruksnæringens forskningsfond)

IMR Institute of Marine Research (Havforskningsinstituttet) JETRO Japan External Trade Organization

JFC Japan Finance Corporation (Nipponseisakukin’yūkōko日本政策金融公庫) NBIC Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (Artsdatabanken)

NSC Norwegian Seafood Council (Sjømatrådet) TAC Total Allowable Catch

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1 Introduction

Introduction

Only six days before my departure from Japan I was finally able to interview the CEO of a Japanese company which imports the snow crab that we will follow in this thesis. This person was Mr. Tanaka (pseudonym), and he is the CEO of CrabAji (company pseudonym). He imports snow crabs from Canadian, Russian and Norwegian exporters and distributes them to hotels, chains, Japanese manufacturers and other actors working in wholesale. His company has been importing snow crab from Norway since 2015. It was an incredibly long, and sometimes disheartening, road to get to him; the top executive of a big company. Mr. Hansen (pseudonym) introduced me to Mr. Thompson (pseudonym), who introduced me to one of Mr. Tanaka’s employees, whom I met and had several correspondences with until he told me where I could meet Mr. Tanaka; at an event in Osaka, it took almost five months from me first hearing about Mr. Tanaka until I was actually interviewing him. So I packed a suitcase and went from Tokyo to Osaka. Acquiring an invitation to attend the event was a hassle in itself. Then, finally, after tracing him all the way to the seafood conference in Osaka, he invited me to interview him at his headquarters in Tokyo. The first thing I sw when I entered his Tokyo headquarters was a tall table with so many crab figurines displayed so elegantly that it looked like a religious shrine for crabs. I was filled with awe when I walked in to the offices and saw the snow crab and king crab memorabilia everywhere. This might be due to my inexperience, but I never have I have never walked into an office and been met by a shrine of whatever it is they sell. The snow crab must be really important to them. There were no real live, nor frozen, snow crab to be seen in the office, but the snow crab was ever present in their data, their thoughts, their memorabilia, posters, office, topics, numbers, economy, and it is possible their entire office was paid for by the profits provided by the magical snow crab.

I have written this thesis for the snow crab, because he is important to me too.

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1.1 Mr. Snow Crab

Before we dive into the deep sea of the snow crab’s multispecies world, I will give a brief introduction about him. In the Barents Sea only the male crabs are caught for commercial use. The males are significantly bigger than the females and can weigh as much as 1,5 kg and live up to 15 years (Siikavuopio et al., 2017, p. 1). The snow crab resides in the north Pacific, Arctic and Northwest Atlantic (Agnalt et al., 2011, p. 283). They prefer cold living areas, hence the name “snow crab”, some may know them as “queen crab” (Tiller & Nyman, 2017, p. 26).

He is particularly popular in the Japanese food culture (Mr. Tanaka, 2017, interview, 3 March). The main exporters of snow crab to the Japanese market are Russia, Canada, Alaska and Norway (Japan customs, 2018). Zuwaiganiズワイガニ is the Japanese word for “snow crab”. The name comes from the Japanese letter suwae楚, which means “a long/elongated object” often a stick, and kani蟹, which is the Japanese letter for “crab” (Suisansōmu kenkyūsentā水産総務研究センター, 2004, p. 1). Interestingly the snow crab has been given different nicknames depending on the location of its capture. I will discuss this in more detail later in my thesis (See: p. 68).

Unscientific as it may be, I have an analogy that tends to be useful when describing the snow crab to someone unfamiliar with the species: when it comes to looks, size, and taste they seem almost like a hybrid between the Norwegian brown crab, taskekrabbe (Cancer pagurus, Linnaeus, 1958) and the red king crab, kongekrabbe, (Paralithodes camtschaticus, Tilesius, 1815). They are smaller than king crabs, but bigger than brown crabs. They have a sweet taste like king crabs, but they also carry some of the distinct “crabby” taste of the brown crab.

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This thesis is about the male Chionoecetes opilio (Fabricius, 1788) which is found in the Barents Sea. The reasons that I chose to write about the male snow crab – and not the female – is not because the female crab lacks an equally important or strange story, I am convinced that she has one. It is primarily because their roles and agencies are too different to write about as one. I cannot pretend they are the same, and have the same interactions and

relations. For example in the Barents Sea, only the males are fished for commercial use, and not the female crab (Institute of Marine Research, 2016, p. 182; Siikavuopio et al., 2017, p.

1). Therefore she does not come along on the trip from the Barents Sea to Japan, and in general she is a smaller part of the market. In Japan she is a part of the market but she is used for different dishes at different places, and she even goes by different names than her male counterpart. Furthermore, she is smaller. The snow crab male has a carapace width of 50- 160mm, while the female has a width between 47-95mm (Elner & Beninger, 1995, p. 94).

She carries the eggs during the reproductive phase, which creates a different story, and she is simply not “done” in the same way as the male snow crab (for the definition of “done” in the context of this thesis, please see p. 16). They both deserve their own projects. Secondly it is because the male snow crab literally offered his story to me on a welcoming plate of articles, food dishes, media, conversations and statistics; he is an outgoing charmer. Hence he became the main player whose interactions I have traced in this ethnographic study in Norway and Japan. Some people do not seem to have the lead role in their own life. The male snow crab on the other hand, seems to have the lead role in many others’ lives, including mine at this moment. In this thesis I will discuss and try to highlight some of the impacts, roles and the agency the snow crab has with the world and all those he encounters.

The snow crab crab is one member in the Chionoecetes family of seven species. Within his family of Chionoecetes crabs, he is the most popular amongst humans for food (Mr. Tanaka, 2018, interview, 3 March). As far as I know, he was also the first in his family to be officially named and registered, as described by Otto Fabricius as early as 1788. Originally he was mistakenly believed to be the offspring of the Cancer Linnaeus, thus named Cancer opilio, but later it was discovered that he was the offspring of Chionoecetes krøyer (WoRMS 2018;

Worms; 2018a). This is not to say he did not exist before his discovery by humans; according to the Institute of Marine Research crabs have existed for approximately 250 million years (Meeren, 2009).

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1.2 Research Question

The story of the male snow crab is complex and complicated. He fills the roles of an invader, a cannibal, a protective family father, a bringer of good fortune and more. All of which are roles dependent on interaction with another actor. The crab cannot be a killer if there is no one to kill. It cannot be a savior if there is no one to save. Assuming that the snow crab is an actor in the social network of interactions, how does he collaborate with other social actors in different parts of the world? By “actor” I mean anyone with agency, human or nonhuman alike, in any given consequential interaction. It is the opposite of a passive object which has no impact on anything and no social relations. As for the term “social” I will go into detail on the definition I will be using for this word in my chapter about “Method of Analysis” (p. 14- 16). Inevitably nature and culture have affected each other endlessly and become so

intertwined that they can be inseparable; they have given new and unique meanings to objects whose differences are indistinguishable (Latour, 1993, p. 6, 7). Expressing this phenomenon we have the term “nature-culture” – or “natureculture” – as it is written in Latour’s book (1993). Naturally nature-cultures affect the social roles and agency of the snow crab; hence as a part of my research I will look into how nature-cultures affect the agency of the snow crab, and also how the snow crab in turn affects them. In my research I have tried to get a clearer grasp on how these nature-cultures affect the agency of the snow crab. In short, in this thesis I want to find out how the snow crab is “done” in various contexts; the Barents Sea, Norway and Japan, and how his existence is manifested in the “social”.

In sum, assuming that the snow crab is an actor in the social network of interactions, how is he social and how does he collaborate with other species? How does his agency and role change in his meetings with different actors and nature-cultures, and how does he in turn change them?

1.3 Purpose

My initial purpose with this study was to help bridge the gap between Norwegian and Japanese actors in this industry. However, as my research changed with findings and supervision, my purpose also changed. I hope this study can provide an insight with a new perspective which has not yet been readily available to the industry. I have also used several Japanese sources, and I hope that for those who are interested in the Japanese seafood market,

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even helpful. When researching this topic I found an abundance of biological research, economic data, statistics, surveys, et cetera, but I have yet to find any studies on the snow crab utilizing Latour’s method of Actor-Network Theory. This leads me to believe that I can find connections that have not yet been made, or at least provide a unique perspective. The snow crab has more to tell us than statistical figures and clear-cut data. It creates room for analysis, reflection and discussion. I hope that I will be able to contribute something to the discourse of humanities in relations to nonhumans. Actor-network theory provides the actors (in my case the snow crabs) “some room to express themselves” (Latour, 2005, p. 142). I also hope the reader will find it interesting and that as new questions pop into their mind about the snow crab, and that I succeed in answering those questions. Lastly, after reading Anna

Tsing’s book about the matsutake mushroom, I felt compassion and love for the little spore that it is. Her enthusiasm for matsutake is contagious, and I think it is impossible to read her book and not be left with some degree of warm feelings for the miraculous fungi. In a similar way I wish that the reader of this thesis can experience a newfound appreciation for the plights and adventures of our remarkable and accomplished snow crab.

Swanson argues that conducting ethnographic research and researching outside the narrowness of one place – transnationally – a world of important connections reveal themselves to the researcher (2013, p. 17.) When comparisons are made, identity and each component that has made something what it is, becomes clearer. Looking into how

multispecies are done in more than one place opens up a Pandora’s box with a trove of questions. When Tsing followed the matsutake through the world, its agency, roles, impact and identity transcended from the paper to the reader. Despite the limited time and resources I have had, and also mistakes I have made due to me being a novice in this field, I hope that on a small but interesting scale, I can also provide some clarity on how the snow crab is done.

The world has become smaller and smaller with the rapid development of internet, airplanes, strong ships, railroads and countless more options that allows all the beings of the world to interact, and often interfere, which each other, human and nonhuman alike. This has made connections able to transcend national borders to a degree that cannot and should not be ignored. To ignore this fact would be to deprive us of a world of compelling stories that we will be intellectually richer for knowing. An example is of course Tsing’s story of the matsutake and Swanson’s story of the salmon. In the words of Swanson; “we take transnational connections seriously” (2013, p. 19) and I intend to do so as well.

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1.4 Methods

Multi Species Ethnography

Heather Swanson has written that people tend to not understand how an anthropologist, “a member of a field that ostensibly focuses of humans” (2013, p. 1) is researching salmon.

Well, I am a student within the field of humanities, and I can promise that this confusion is prevalent in my interactions as well. When people I meet ask me what I studying, I usually answer, “I am studying the snow crab”. From my perspective that is the only natural answer, because he is the one I have been tracing for the past 20 months. This answer often seem to make people believe that I am a biologist, and then when we go further into the topic of how and why I am studying the snow crab I always hear; “Oh, I thought you were a biologist!

How can you study crabs in the Faculty of Humanities??”. As Swanson, Lien and many others have proven, there is a way to research nonhuman actors in the field of anthropology, and I hope I will succeed in showing that it is plausible to do so in the faculty of humanities as well. Hence, with the aim to be less anthropocentric than my choice of faculty would imply, and figure out the snow crab’s social story, I did my own multispecies ethnography in Japan. In the words of Swanson: “Multispecies ethnography centers on how a multitude of organisms’ livelihoods shape and are shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces”

(Swanson, 2013, p. 545).

For this research I spent a year in Japan as an exchange student at Keio University in Tokyo.

During my ethnographic study I worked under the premise that I wanted to gather as much data as possible. Rather than focusing on one specific method, I wanted to utilize a plethora of methods in order to get the fullest picture possible on the social circumstances and

experiences of the snow crab. Using this approach, I hoped to take advantage of the benefits to each strategy. For example the in-depthness of qualitative interviews, and the strength in numbers that is attainable from quantitative surveys. I did not conduct my own quantitative surveys, but used preexsiting ones such as surveys by the Consumer Affairs Agency (2016), Maruha Nichiro Group (2014) and Japan Finance Corporation (2015). Using both qualitative and quantitative data material gave me a story to trace, which is what I was looking for when following the interactions of the snow crab. I did not start out with a set frame or intent on how and what I was going to look for. I simply started and followed each and every trace I could find, to each and every way it led me. In this chapter I will explain in detail how, and

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for what purpose, I used the methods that I did. Lastly, just as one should not sell the fur of a bear that has not been poached yet (Norwegian proverb), one should not write a thesis about a crustacean one has not tasted yet. During this one year of fieldwork in Japan, I might have doubled Japans crab consumption all on my own.

Three of my qualitative interviews were conducted in Norwegian, two in English, and one in Japanese. When using a third language there is a risk for misunderstandings, and nuances being lost in translation. In order to prevent this I discussed all the questions I had prepared for the Japanese interview with two Japanese PhD candidates, and with Mr. Thompson; a market researcher I will mention again later. The Japanese informant’s (the interview object) identity had been anonymized thus neither his identity nor his workplace was revealed to those whom I consulted with. The statistics I have used for the snow crab market and trade circumstances in Japan are in Japanese. Statistics for the Norwegian side of the trade relationship and snow crab market are in Norwegian. The articles, reports and journals and other literature I have read have been split between Japanese, Norwegian and English.

Conferences

In order to attain as much knowledge as possible about the snow crab, I have talked to everyone about it. I have been the “crab lady” in the minds of most likely everyone I have met for the past two years. That is a badge I carry wear with pride. Through networking I was lucky enough to be invited to two very helpful seminars. I attended one in Osaka and one in Tokyo. I will cite some of the facts presented by the speakers and attendees at the seminars in this thesis. At the conferences I was able to observe the “doing” (see 29-31, 65-69), or the identity, of the snow crab, and its manifestation in the human world, which has become a significant part of my thesis.

Interviews

I interviewed four informants officially, Mr Tanaka, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Hansen, and Mr.

Eriksen (Pseudonyms). Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hansen were interviewed twice. To protect their identity I have given them pseudonyms as well as fictional names for their workplaces.

The only unchanged personal details are nationality, gender, and their line of work. My informants are: a director of a Norwegian marketing company in Japan, a researcher in the Japanese seafood industry, a seafood market researcher based in Japan, and lastly a CEO of a

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snow crab importer based in Japan. I interviewed Mr. Tanaka in the structured format. I had an interview guide with 30 questions, all of which I had shown him in advance. I recorded the interview with an external recording device with his consent to do so. The interview, and the consent to participate form he signed, was in his native language, Japanese. Mr. Thompson’s semi-structured interview was more similar to a conversation, where we had pre-prepared topics and data, and we discussed them. I asked questions as they came to mind. Both of the conversations were mainly in English, but as often happen when two foreigners live in Japan for a considerable amount of time, some things were said in Japanese. The first of the

conversations was recorded with his consent, the second one was not recorded, but notes were taken. I interviewed Mr. Hansen twice, both of which were a mix of a semi structured interview and a narrative one. I had approximately 15 pre-prepared questions for the first meeting, and ten for the second one. Mr. Hansen had heaps of snow crab related data, which we discussed. I was free to ask any question about the industry during the meetings. I was introduced to Mr. Eriksen by Mr. Hansen for the simple reason that they work for the same company. The interview with Mr. Eriksen was similar to that of Mr. Hansen, he showed me a presentation about the seafood market he had prepared for another meeting with important actors within the industry, and we talked about the data in the presentation, and I asked the questions I had regarding it, as well as a few prepared questions and topics I had brought with me. None of the interviews with Mr. Hansen or Mr. Eriksen was recorded, due the fact that a lot of the data that I received from them was already documented, and due to the sensitive nature of some of the classified topics. However, I was provided with extensive documents of data, their presentation materials, and took notes in my designated notebook. Tsing said in her book where she herself does multispecies ethnography, The Mushroom at the End of the World; On the Possibility of a Like in Capitalist Ruins, that “The point of ethnography is to learn how to think about a situation together with one’s informants; research categories develop with the research” (2015, p. xi). In my meetings with Mr. Hansen, Mr. Eriksen and Mr. Thompson that is the way we did it. My research was meant to be flexible and move with the findings. It was always subject to change, which I had stipulated prior to the meeting, and other than a number of the interview questions, no theory or hypothesis was fixed in advance.

I tried to utilize a set of seven hypotheses after repeatedly being advised to do so by my Japanese supervisor and fellow students, but try as I might, I saw no benefits to using them;

they functioned more like as a disheartening saboteur trying to force me into a restrictive box in which neither I, nor the snow crab, belong. Needless to say I threw them away. It may

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seem as if I am not able to use conventional frameworks and methods, or perhaps the hypotheses were not good enough. Either way, this is where we have landed.

Conversations

I had meaningful conversations with several other relevant sources, but these were without a signature on the form approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. I do

acknowledge that I have used the information as inspiration on where and how to look for additional data. Examples of such conversations would be the calls I have had with crab ship owners, producers, or crab researchers; to fact-check disputed information or to gain their insight on, for example, the route of the sea cargo sent from Norway to Japan. No sensitive information was every gathered from these informants. The limited number of occasions I have cited information from these correspondences in the text, I have received permission to do so; and verbally informed the informant about the topic of this thesis, how the information will be used, that they will be anonymized, and for what purpose.

Quantitative Methods

I gathered statistical data from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (2017), Japan Trade Customs and from the statistics book suisanbutsu-powerdatabook the 2017 edition, made by Kabushikisuisantsūshinsha, which is a Japanese agency which provides seafood related news and information. The powerdatabook is difficult to obtain, therefore I was incredibly lucky to receive it from one of my generous informants. This data was used to look specifically at prices and export/import statistics. Using the Internet, I collected publicly available surveys and quantitative studies regarding seafood, with Japanese consumers as participants. These sources were mainly used to map out the current trends in the Japanese seafood market, and the Snow Crab market and consumption pattern. Privately owned companies such as the Maruha Nichiro Group and public offices such as the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (2016) Health conducted the surveys.

Validity and Precautions

I read classified material from interviews that had been held with over a dozen companies similar to the one I interviewed. The results in that study were equal to mine, and this led me to believe that the information I gathered was reliable. As for the preexisting quantitative surveys, each had between 1000 and 2000 participants, and the results corresponded across

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every survey. Through my informants I had access to similar studies where Japanese

distributors and importers had been asked about the circumstances of the Japanese snow crab market and Norway’s role in it. I found that the data I got from the interview with Mr.

Tanaka coincided with the other pre-existing studies. In general, considering what I have heard from conversations and seen in previous studies, the answer from Mr. Tanaka coincides with the current thoughts and opinion of the importers.

Assumptions and hearsay that the informants have brought with them to the interview has had an effect on the results. To the best of my ability I have looked up information, and fact checked with scientists in the field. I do not claim that my sources, informants, or that I hold any absolute truths, rather I aim to show each actors perspectives in this network of

interactions. This research is very specific to the snow crab, and its relation to Norway and Japan, therefore I do not think it is directly transferable to other fields. However I do think parallels and common themes can be found between this study and others. I have seen common threads, at least, between the crab’s journey, the matsuake’s journey, and the salmon’s journey (Tsing, 2015; Lien, 2015). Due to time limitations I could not spend as much time on the Norwegian side of the snow crab industry, and visit the factories in Finnmark, as I had originally planned. Most of my time was spent in Japan, researching the market and their snow crab culture. However I tried to get the answer I could regarding the Norwegian industry with the help of phone calls and email correspondence with fishing boat owners, a producer and a scientist. This is why the text may seem unbalanced regarding the time spent on each connection and each “social” interaction. All photos with no source or credits listed in a caption underneath them are taken by me.

I would also like to give a brief disclaimer, because I might appear harsh when pointing out disparities or conflicting stories. However that is not my intention. I am simply recounting the realities of the beings I have observed, and asking the questions my curiosity compels me to. My questions are not to be confused with critique, as they are tools I have used to get deeper into the story, and to reveal reality in its multiplicity. Regarding this there is a great quote about multiplicities by Marianne Lien;

We are not talking here of interpretative flexibility, nor are we particularly interested in social controversy as such, or in cultural or logical inconsistency. Instead, we work on the

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assumption that reality can be not one but many. We are not saying it necessarily is, but we are open to this possibility (2015, p. 24).

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2 Method of Analysis (Theory)

As for my academic framework, or more fittingly; “lack” of framework (Latour, 2005, p.

153), I have chosen to use the method of Actor-Network Theory, (hereafter ANT), as explained by Latour (2005), and as presented in the works of Donna J. Haraway (2005), Anna L. Tsing (2015), Marianne E. Lien (2015) and Heather A. Swanson (2013). I was introduced to ANT by my supervisor in the fall of 2016, and I have been smitten with the method ever since.

It’s a theory, (…) about how to study things, or rather how not to study them—or rather, how to let the actors have some room to express themselves (Latour, 2005, p.

142 )

During my fieldwork in Japan I encountered rather insistent pushback on the decision to use this theory, but as soon as I landed back in Norway and had a refreshing and inspiring talk with my academic supervisor Aike P. Rots, I returned straight back to my home within ANT.

Despite the dismissal I met at times, this project has been a great opportunity for me to test the theory out for myself. Using this theory of analysis, I hope to uncover new and interesting perspectives in the world of the snow crab. I was inspired by the way Tsing opened up a new universe in her book about the matsutake mushroom, and Lien and Swanson did when they relayed the experiences of the salmon, and how Haraway was able to show a completely new way to think of, and relate to, dogs and other species in When Species Meet.

In order to understand ANT there are several important terms and expressions that are vital to understand first. I have chosen to explain the terms that will have the most relevance to my thesis. The expressions I will introduce in this chapter are the following: ‘actor, actant and agency’ (Latour 2005), the ‘Social’ (Latour, 2005), ‘tracing’ (Latour 2005; Tsing 2015; Lien, 2015), ‘done’ (Swanson 2013), and the ‘Great Divide’ (Latour, 1993), and I will take a closer look at what reality can be in ANT. In the conclusion, I will summarize and try to give a fuller picture of what ANT means. However, it is important to note that as I will do my best to dismantle and explain the complex concept of Actor-Network Theory, it will be with my own biased interpretation of it. I am shaped by my way of understanding and past

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experiences, and in turn, no clean slate on which theory can be imprinted upon in the exact form that the scholars, such as Latour, intended for it to be.

To avoid any potential confusion regarding the name of this theory - Actor-Network Theory - I will just briefly mention some context for the decision to use this name. The name itself should not be taken too seriously. In his books about ANT, Latour has mentioned several times that the name is ill suited. Rather than focusing on a network of actors, it focuses more on a network of interactions. However he has a couple of reasons for keeping the slightly unsuitable name. First Latour states that: “Alas, the historical name is ‘actor-network-theory’, a name that is so awkward, so confusing, so meaningless that it deserves to be kept” (2005, p.

9). Then he writes: “A.N.T.was perfectly fit for a blind, myopic, workaholic, trail-sniffing, and collective traveler. An ant writing for other ants, this fits my project very well!” (Latour, 2005, p. 9). So that is the name we have, and it should not be taken literally.

Actor, Actant and Agency

Before we delve into the complexity of Actor-Network Theory (hereafter ANT) it is essential to have a clear definition of what “actor”, “actant”, and “agency” means in this context. I cannot imagine the confusion that would occur if someone read this thesis thinking that

“actor” was meant as someone who appears in movies, and “agency” meant a company that can be hired to perform tasks. Latour has made a few adjustments to these terms that are worth mentioning, and in order to be clear, I will explain his versions of them. First, agency:

“First, agencies are always presented in an account as doing something, that is, making some difference to a state of affairs, transforming some As into Bs through trials with Cs” (Latour, 2005, pp. 52-53).

The A turning into a B is the impact of an interaction; the agency. Latour stresses that agency is an impact made by the interaction between two or more actors, in this case with C. In short: The agency is the impact of an actor’s action in relation to other actors. Then we have

“actors” who are those who have agency, those who cause changes to happen and have interactions with others. The actors can be nonhuman or human, as long as they have a part of an interaction with an outcome they are an actor in ANT. If an actor does not have any

agency, then in turn they cannot be an actor (Latour 2005, p. 153). This is a crucial part of

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ANT (Latour, 2005, p. 153). Passive beings with no impact on its surroundings are not actors, even if they are human. Latour uses the example of a fable where the actant is someone who acts through the agency of another actor such as a sword, or a dwarf (Latour, 2005, p. 54). To demonstrate the role of the actant I will continue down the road of fantastical examples, which is valuable according to Latour, because fictional writers are not as restricted by unquestioned truth claims as social scientists are (Latour, 2005, p. 54, 55). In the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, by author J. R. R. Tolkien (1955), Gollum bites off Frodo’s finger to get the ring. The ring is the actant; through its manipulative ways and immense desirability it causes Gollum to act differently than he otherwise would, in fact Gollum even changes identity, during the encounter with the powerful agency of the ring, from Sméagol to Gollum. As an actant, the ring has the agency of being so desirable that Gollum will do anything to get it, and Frodo is an actor who gets his finger bitten off. With no Frodo and with no Gollum, this interaction would not have taken place, yet the ring triggered the interaction. Thus the actors are all equally important for this happening to take place, but something is directly causing it to change from its original state; the actant, the ring. “[Actants] are simply different ways to make actors do things”

(Latour, 2005, p. 55) A motivator of sorts. As I have mentioned, the agency of the actants and actors is more important than the actors themselves. This will become very clear later when we look at what reality means in ANT. Latour stresses the following:

In my vocabulary, an actor that makes no difference is not an actor at all. An actor, if words have any meaning, is exactly what is not substitutable. It’s a unique event, totally irreducible to any other, except, that is, if you render one commensurable with another one by some process of standardization—but even that requires a third actor, a third event (2005, p. 153).

To summarize: the actor is someone or something that interacts with another actor, their agency is the impact they have in the interaction, and an actant is someone or something that makes an actor do as they do. In this thesis I investigate the snow crab’s interactions as an actor, but also look at some of the agency of the actants who are impacting his path, such as purity and alienness.

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The Social

I wish to explore the term the “Social” because it is relevant to my research question, and to understand the theory of ANT. The uses and meanings of the term “social” have been shrinking over time (Latour, 2005, p.6). The origin of the word comes from “sequi” which used to mean “to follow” and then later in Latin it indicated “associations” (Latour, 2005, p.

6). Fast forward to the present and it is a term for “social studies” particularly in academia, or a word to describe people who skillfully interact with people around them. “Social” is now a word that is almost always used in regard to humans; for example, social worker (Latour, 2005, p. 6). Latour argues that “Social” should describe far more than a narrow set of human characteristics or activities, and he seems more comfortable with the original Latin meaning of the word (2005, p. 6). In this thesis I will be using the term “social” as I have interpreted it from Latour’s books We Have Never Been Modern (1993) and Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (2005). Latour explains it as follows:

For ANT... [The social] is the name of a movement, a displacement, a transformation, an enrollment. It is an association between entities which are in no way recognizable as being social in the ordinary manner, except during the brief moment when they are reshuffled together (Latour, 2005, p. 65).

The most interesting aspect of this definition is that everything can be a part of the social, but no actor is social in itself, simply by being. This is a harsh contrast to the common thought that most humans are social beings as they are. Here, relationality is the very essence of being social. An example that anything can potentially be an actor within the social could be the heater in your living room; a cool temperature will spark an interaction where you turn up the heat on the heater, and maybe it is positioned in your room that causes you to move furniture when you turn up the heat to avoid causing any damage. When the heater becomes dusty you turn the heat off and clean it, maybe you try to move it to another room for the summer, but it resists being lifted because it is heavy, so instead you decide to push it across the floor. The agency of these two actors is equal. The human would not have pushed the oven if the human were not there, and the oven would not have been pushed if it were not there. In my

interpretation of ANT’s “social”, all of these are social interactions between two or more equally important actors. In this case the actors are a human and a nonhuman. Furthermore, it is not the heater in itself that is important, nor is it the specific identity of “you” (the person

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who is interacting with the oven). The important part is: the network of interactions and events that transpire in the network between the two of you, and the traces that are left behind (2005, p. 159). In short, “the work” (Latour, 2005, p. 143). One might find this definition slightly paradoxical; the actors are equally important, but still they are irrelevant because it is the outcome of the interaction between them that is important. In short, the social is an immensely important expression within ANT because it expresses the connections and associations between actors, and the fundamental equality between them (Latour, 2005, p. 5).

To illustrate how reality can be perceived differently in ANT, and also how fundamentally important agency is, I will use ghosts as an example. This choice was inspired by Tsing, who wrote about three men who had died in their tent while searching for matsutake mushroom.

Their ghosts haunted the campsite and the remaining mushroom-pickers moved away (2015, p. 73). Without dwelling on, or questioning, the disputed existence of ghosts, she simply writes: “Ghosts can paralyze you, taking away your ability to move or speak” (2015, p. 73) which is a testament to the indisputable agency of ghosts. As I have mentioned before; in the realm of ANT whether the actor in itself exists or not is irrelevant. As long as it has agency then it exists. Hence the tireless debate on the existence of ghosts is meaningless. In the theory I am using, ghosts most certainly do exist because they have agency. They make people scared and as actants they cause people to behave differently than they otherwise would, that is their agency. Maybe a child who is afraid of seeing a ghost cries and escapes into the warm embrace of its parents. Maybe a group of teenagers sneak into an abandoned house looking for ghosts rumoured to haunt the rooms there. Because ghosts have agency in the world, and an impact on other actors, they exist in the social reality of ANT. In Tsing’s book, ghosts caused immense ruckus in the matsutake community (Tsing, 2015, p. 73-75), and that is how they exist in the network of interactions. Furthermore “Respect for the dead”

expresses something real, because it contains a cause of action; it has agency.

“Follow the Flow”

Latour talks about following traces and the importance of it when working with ANT (Latour, 2005, p. 237). As we looked at earlier, Latour mentions the connection between the words “social” and “follow”. Following and tracing go hand in hand. A considerable part of my research will consist of tracing the connections the snow crab makes, and following his footsteps through the world. Marianne Lien, an anthropologist at the University of Oslo,

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traced the salmon and recants her experience about how the salmon identity is “done”. In her book Becoming Salmon she writes that despite tracing the salmon, in many ways, she could not truly know salmon (2015, p. 31). She did not live with them, nor did she swim with them.

However she did do a number of other things; she fed them, counted them, held them and watched them. I have to take it a step further, or maybe “a step back” is more appropriate in this context. I have not held a live snow crab, I have not fed them, and the number of times I have seen them alive can be counted on one hand. Therefore I can only witness the

aftereffects of his existence. Luckily this way of observing is also mentioned in Latour’s ANT description of tracing the social: “It is visible only by the traces it leaves (under trials) when a new association is being produced between elements which themselves are in no way

‘social’” ( Latour, 2005, p.18). Inspired by Lien and the other “ants,” I have also traced people who trace my actor, and as a human interacted with other humans to get their experience with my actor of choice (Lien, 2015, p. 31). In my research there are five main people I have interacted with that I will introduce to you as they appear in the story. I have tried my best to let the actors — regardless of whether they are distributors or consumers or nonhumans — speak for themselves, while continuously following the traces of the snow crab. “Just follow the flow. Yes, follow the actors themselves or rather that which makes them act, namely the circulating entities” (Latour, 2005, p. 237).

To be “Done”

In the context of ethnographic anthropology the expression “done” is not to be confused with

“finished”. Rather it is a term to express the identity of a human or nonhuman actor. It is how the actor is “performed” in the world in which it lives. I use “performed” in this way, because actors are not just performing themselves, they – including me and you – are also being performed by everyone they meet, and the surroudings they find themselves in. It is what we do, it is how we are interacted with, and how we are relating to the world of social

interactions. Swanson found this in the salmon being; “Salmon actually come into being as entirely different organisms depending on their relationships” (2015, p. 7). I argue that this is the case for everyone, and I will show how this is so true of the snow crab. Furthermore the surroundings, in which we find ourselves, are a part of how we are done, and how our identity is performed. The snow crab in the Barents Sea has completely different agency and interactions than the snow crab on the Japanese dinner table. Our identity changes with our surrounding and with our interactions. This is also observed by Heather Swanson; “The tight

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coupling between fish and place (…) was one of the key parts of salmon being” (2015, p. 3).

This coupling is a significant factor in the snow crab being as well, and it will be explored throughout this thesis. In short: rather than focusing on what nature is we should focus on

“how” it is “done” (Lien, 2015, p. 22) For my research this means I will not be simply relaying what a snow crab is, I will also explore how it exists, and is done, in its multispecies world.

Being Understood

The snow crab species does not have the privilege of being understood by humans. Being understood by humans is not important because it inherently is, but because we live together and consequently have impact on each other. Understanding creates mutual respect and responsible responses (Haraway, 2008, pp. 78-82). The privilege of being understood, or having our suffering being understood (Lien, 2015, pp. 131, 132) could provide better or more ideal treatment, more rights, and be respected enough to not to be killed using wooden clubs like the farmed salmon were in Oregon (Swanson, 2015, p. 4). As they appear to us, the snow crabs are very much like the salmon described by Lien: “They are cold. They live in water. They are mostly out of sight. They are silent. Their eyes have no expressions that humans can recognize. Their body language is difficult for us to interpret” (Lien, 2015, p.131). How will we then understand the story of the snow crab? One way is to trace its interactions and the places where the actor has existed, as I have mentioned earlier in this chapter (p. 16, 17). This provides another way to map out to out the treatment of other species and stories in similar circumstances, and in that way look for similarities and disparities. This way of comparing and gaining new perspectives is also mentioned as valuable in Lien’s book:

When I choose to “think salmon through goats and cows,” it is not because the alternatives are not also relevant but because domestication offers opportunities to mobilize comparisons that I find particularly intriguing (2015, p. 5).

I have found intriguing comparisons as well in the world of the king crab, cod and salmon, and I will discuss these as they become relevant to the story of the snow crab. Haraway further points out the issue of lacking privileges; “Little privileges tell big stories” (Haraway, 2008, p. 96). In this statement many interpretations can be made; mine is that the fewer

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privileges one has, such as the privilege of safety, housing, sufficient nutrition, and being understood in life the more they endure and experience and harbor around complex dark stories. Oppression is dramatic. The lack of understanding for a species’ pain is also a part of what can make them “killable”. I will write more on this in the next section about the great divide.

The Great Divide

Another important expression in the discourse of ANT is the “Great Divide”. This expression will appear many times in my thesis, so an explanation of its vast meaning is necessary. This phenomenon is described extensively in Latour’s book We Have Never Been Modern (1993, pp. 12, 39, 56, 97-103, 104, 107-9, 113, 116, 137) and it is also written about in Haraway’s book When Species Meet (2008, pp. 9-11, 15, 21,). The Great Divide describes the very powerful divides that are in place our current society. This divide can hinder researcher from researching appropriately and effectively. The divide can for example exist between the cultural and natural, the organic and technological, or the wild and domesticated (Haraway, 2008, p. 15). It is also glaringly apparent between nonhumans and humans. To explain the divide, Haraway uses the example of the difference between consuming of a non-living placenta, and killing and consuming animals. She writes that she longs for the heated

discussions that arise whenever someone raises the topic of eating a placenta when she thinks of the life of a pig (2008, p. 299). Why is it that consuming a placenta is mostly frowned upon, while effectively slaughtering and causing legitimate harm to sentient nonhumans (in this case animals) on a mass-scale is not only accepted, but expected? This is because there is a great divide between what is acceptable or not between the species. The divide is what makes consuming a harmless part of a human considered worse than consenting to the death and harm of living creatures. This divide seems to be based on something arbitrary, or at least not based in objective reality. These kinds of subjective norms go against the fundamental equality that ANT promotes and encourages (Latour, 2005, p. 34) thus an ANT researcher will not conduct research oblivious to the effects of this divide. The great divide can also be observed within the human species. For example Latour mentions the controversial term

“Westerns”, which represents a quite arbitrary divide between “Us, westerners” and everyone else (Latour, 1993, p. 12). Naoki Sakai has written an article in a journal about this term and its flaws (2000, pp. 789-818), possibly unaware that this is the kind of thinking that works alongside ANT. Sakai argues that the term is a mythical construct, his snide remarks and

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harsh criticism about this binary is a joyful read. He claims that rather than described something real, an actual place or group, it merely describes “not us” from a westerners perspective (2000, p. 791). The terms “Westerners” and “Asians” thereby enforce a divide which is not based on something genuine. When accuracy is of the essence, “some people we call us” and “some people who are not us”, cannot be recognized as anything of value.

The great divide is everywhere, and it seems impossible to forgo such a divide completely.

And if it were to suddenly disappear from one day to the next, the world would not be recognizable. What we can do is acknowledge the controversy and effects of such a divide, and strive to work next to it, rather than to be limited by it. This means taking all actors in account, high-status and low-status humans alike, and humans and nonhuman actors alike, and giving them an equal value in the network of transformations (Latour, 2005, p. 109). In essence, starting from scratch when committing to a new scientific project, and becoming aware of preconceived notions and frameworks. One must not assume that nonhumans are humans are the same (Latour, 2005, p. 76), but I find it useful to be aware of this divide in any aspect of my research. I see the divide as an actor in the social with truly

immeasurable agency. As I see it, this divide is the chief of life and death. It is the master of our time’s “right and wrong”, and it is everywhere in every moment, affecting our thought, actions, morals and lives. Thus I find it very interesting to be aware of it as we look at the role of the snow crab in the nature-‐cultural world, and thus I have not chosen to ignore it, although other ants might. To be clear, my intention is never to create symmetry between humans and nonhumans and I am not making any value or ethical judgments, in any direction.

In relation to the great divide, I would like to introduce Haraway’s expression “Companion Species”. This is an extension of the term “Companion Animal” because it includes both living beings and inanimate objects. True to the philosophy of ANT where expressions for general vague structures such as “fashion” (Latour, 2005, p. 33) are less valued and the focus is rather on terms that describe specific concrete and observable phenomena. As such, the term “companion species” is not a socially constructed arbitrary term, but a term for an interdependent relationship between species, between actors, inanimate or organic beings alike. She uses the words Lapdogs and Laptops as equal companions to the human (2008, p.

10). Both the computer and the dog live with their human in a similar way, even though one

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is living and one is not. They demand feeding (one through an electrical cord/charger and one through dog food), they take focus and attention, they change their human, and they can provide entertainment, support and comfort. It is not merely the human who is an actor in buying the lapdog, feeding it, training it, and walking it. The dog is also an important actor in this interaction. The lapdog changes the human, makes the human feed it, interact with it, take precautions and cuddle it. With this in mind she moves away from the strictly human terms and the nonhuman terms, by saying that dogs are “technologies”, “patients”,

“consumers” and hold family memberships. Using the method of ANT in my research I have explored the many similar roles of snow crab, and how it also changes the human, the sea and nature-cultures. “What they are not is slaves and nonliving property” (Haraway, 2008, pp. 62, 66-67). In a similar way Tsing also emphasizes that the domestication of animals is not just a practice of human control over animals, but it also represents a change in the human as well (Tsing, 2012, p.4). Thus, my interpretation is that in order to successfully understand that all actors are important and a part of “the social”, we must first realize that dogs and other nonhuman objects are often put in a secondary passive position, and not treated as an

legitimate actant, and then strive to work against that. By arguing the equality of snow crabs and humans − since I do not discourage the consumption of snow crab in any way − I merely want to acknowledge and emphasize the great divide which is there. It is important to do so in order to understand the role of the snow crab throughout the world. There is no fixed rule for what treatment is acceptable toward each living species.

It pulled on my heartstrings when I read, in a research report by Foyle and his team (Foyle et al., 1989), that they have experimented with the crabs to a fatal degree in order to measure how temperatures affect the actions of the snow crab. It is an important project, I do not dispute that, on the contrary, I am glad the study was done because it provided me with information I needed for this thesis. Was the snow crab killable (Haraway, 2008, p. p. 78, p.

80)? Or was he killed? It is easy to point out the ever glaring appearance of the great divide.

Neither myself, nor the general public, have any issues with boiling crabs alive and pulling off the legs of their dead carcasses and devouring them. At least I have never seen anyone protest against this action. Even so, the thought of a snow crab being experimented on until death makes me shudder.

“There is a whole world of those who can be killed, because finally they are only something, not somebody, close enough to “being” in order to be a model, substitute, sufficiently self-

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similar, and so nourishing too, but not close enough to compel response” (Haraway, 2008, p.

79). Haraway does not claim that she is necessarily correct intellectually, emotionally, and morally, about this issues regarding the killableness. In fact she says she will be wrong about things, but she says that it is a “misstep to pretend to live outside killing” (2008, p. 79). There is a lot more that can be said about being killable, but for the sake of staying on track I will not go deeper into it at this moment. For details on being made killable, please see Haraway (2008).

Words and Their Meaning

Latour explains that while terms such as “folk tradition” or “fashion”, or methods such as looking towards laws or traditions, or creating your own versions of such phenomena, ultimately is a part of “the social” in the sense that most people imagine it (Latour, 2005, p.

33). On the contrary, these terms are almost the antitheses to that which is authentically social in the context of ANT. The words are redundant; they carry little meaning and no “trace, spark or information”, which is the very core of ANT’s social. Hence they are no part of the social (Latour, 2005, p. 33). Because of this way of assessing the world, to work with ANT may also include questioning words, categories, and the actual meaning behind them. This too can provide an exciting new perspective to ideas previously taken for granted. A perfect example of this would be Marianne Lien’s new interpretation of the expression “escaped salmon” in the salmon farming industry. She reflects upon the actual situation and argues that expressions such as “homeless” “refugees”, or even “outlaws” would more accurately

express the circumstances the salmon were in after accidentally leaving its pen (Lien, 2015, pp. 160, 161). In this thesis I aim to question some of the many truths taken for granted in the world of the snow crab. However, when it comes to the redundancy of words that describe phenomena, there are exceptions. Through usage and perception some of these words have gained agency over time. They have ceased to not mean anything of value and agency.

However, the meaning they encompass within the world of ANT is still not the meaning most people think they hold.

In Reassembling the Social Latour writes that the language of an ANT sociologist is often significantly less rigid and stiff in their world view and the agencies populating it, and that;

“Their language may begin to gain as much inventiveness as that of the actors they try to follow” (2005, p.55). This could be because they are not limited by standardized methods,

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framework, or any other restrictions set by the current society. Throughout this thesis I will at times use the expression “our crab”. By this I mean the snow crab that you, the reader, and I are following from the Barents Sea to Norway, and then to Japan. Calling this particular snow crab “Norwegian” is not ideal (I will discuss this on pp. 77-79). Nor is calling it “the snow crab from the Barents Sea”, which would also be inaccurate. This is because I am not

following any given snow crab from the Barents Sea, I am exclusively tracing the snow crab that travels to the Barents Sea and then leaves again. Moreover, I use the pronouns as

“he/him” or (“they/them” in plural) when I refer the snow crab. Calling a snow crab and “it”

has become entirely unnatural to me, after seeing him as someone with agency, roles and impacts for a long time. In regard to this, I would like to quote Haraway, that sentient animals are: “someone, not something” (2008, p. 106). It is with this in mind that I have decided upon a few alternative ways of addressing it; for example he, our crab, the traveller, the protective partner and more. These terms contain actions, doing, and thus accurately describes

something that he actually is and how he is done. Do not misunderstand my usage of

“human” terms upon the crab as a humanization of them, thus furthering the human centeredness. I am not trying to make the snow crab human, or force them into a human version of the world. I am attempting to do the very opposite; I aim to dehumanize the words themselves. They are not exclusive to humans. Nonhumans do things, accomplish things and have roles as well. They can even have job descriptions: “putting on weight is their [the salmons’] job description” (Lien, 2015, p. 119). Nothing in the term “job description”

indicates that it exclusively belongs to humans, so why should it? The value of using words, previously rendered exclusive to the human realm, is that it can often accurately describe the situation and relationship between the actor and the world, as we saw in Lien’s discussion about the homeless salmon. This accuracy is valuable not only in the human world but also in the nonhuman world. Keeping the inventiveness of ants in mind I will try to emulate some of ANT’s perspectives and innovative ways of operating in my thesis, hopefully without

forfeiting the precision and coherence of the story.

Nature-Culture

In my research question I have included the term “nature-culture”, or natureculture, hence it is appropriate to offer a clear and straightforward explanation. Bruno Latour and Anne Haraway use the term “natureculture”, while Anna Tsing uses “nature-culture”, to describe this phenomenon (Latour, 1993, p. 30; Tsing, 2015, p. 52). I have chosen to use the spelling

From the Barents Sea to the Japanese Dinner Plate