1FISH, FACTORY TRAWLERS, AND IMITATION CRAB: THE NATURE OF QUALITY IN THE SEAFOOD INDUSTRY

• Main Author: Becky Mansfield
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Krab; alaska pollock; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.516.6639; http://www2.ucsc.edu/globalinterns/cpapers/mansfieldpap.pdf

As the last major food that is primarily wild-caught, fish offers unique perspectives on relationships among nature, quality, and agro-food production. In this paper, I explore how ideas about quality are not simply social constructions that have material effects, but are complex interactions between natural inputs and their environments, production techniques and technologies, and foods and their uses. To explore how quality is constructed within specific production networks, and then how it affects relations within those networks, I will develop a case study of the surimi seafood industry. Surimi is a fish paste made from a variety of fish species, including Alaska pollock, the largest fishery in the world. Surimi is used to make a variety of seafood products, including both traditional Japanese fish cakes and imitation seafood products (e.g. “krab”), which is the most common form in the US and Europe. Rather than focusing on relationships between ‘nature ’ and ‘society, ’ I analyze individual production networks to understand how specific aspects of what we call ‘the natural world ’ participate in specific interactions. I show that physical characteristics of the fish, and the environments from which they come, play key roles in quality definitions. Yet at the same time, which characteristics count as quality is defined within the production networks. The key is not whether natural processes put constraints on economic activities or whether economic actors are able to outflank nature through technical innovation, but rather how specific elements and activities within production networks define each other in their interactions.