FÅGEL, FISK ELLER MITTEMELLAN? Mänskliga och mer-än-mänskliga relationer i en västsvensk fiskhamn

Abstract

This study aims to describe the relationships and interactions between humans and more-than- human actors in a seafood processing facility located in the fishing harbor of Gothenburg, Sweden. Species of seagull, such as great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) and in particular European herring gull (Larus argentatus), are the core more-than-human actors in this thesis. The study has been conducted using ethnographical methods such as participant observation, field notes, and interviews. A multispecies ethnography perspective has been applied throughout the process of the study. The group of informants that have been consulted consists of workers and business owners who work in or frequent the fishing harbor. The on- site waste management facility is proven to be a space fraught with conflict, and I analyze the metaphysical aspects of conflicts – how they stay connected to a space through time. I also show that the border between food and garbage as it pertains to the seafood processed on-site is fluid: changing depending on economic and cultural factors. Drawing from Anna Tsing’s and Tim Ingold’s theories of interspecies entanglements, I show that humans and more-than- human actors make up a hybrid community. The seafood processed on-site is also shown to be a participant in the process in its own catching, processing, and sale. In the second last chapter I give examples of positive and negative interactions between human workers and seagulls as well as a short historical example of human-seagull relationships on the Swedish west coast. In conclusion I argue that human-seagull relationships are constantly being formed in the fishing harbor, despite the workers’ lack of attention to them. The fishing harbor hybrid community is in the final chapter shown to be an entanglement of human, seafood, and seagull. The study is written in Swedish.