The problem of fluctuation: nature, capital, and measure in Newfoundland's saltfish industry, 1887-1937

• Main Author: Banoub, Daniel
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Political economy of resource extraction; Historical geography; Newfoundland and Labrador; Real subsumption; Fisheries and aquaculture; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/19f5d22f-da42-4ec2-ad49-e9565f4ecff6; https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/files/84023936/FULL_TEXT.PDF

This thesis examines scientific, technological, and organizational innovations in Newfoundland's saltfish industry between 1887 and 1937. Since entering the orbit of European capital in the fifteenth century, Newfoundland's economy and society was organized around the export of saltfish (salted and dried cod) to consuming markets in Southern Europe and Latin America. By the nineteenth century, saltfish production was organized primarily around the small-scale fishing family financed by merchant capital. This mode of production consistently produced a large aggregate amount of saltfish of highly uneven quality. By the late-nineteenth century, however, this production system was placed under pressure as consumers in the key European markets demanded uniformly high quality saltfish, and Newfoundland's competitors began providing it. Using archival and secondary sources, this thesis examines attempts to improve and modernize saltfish production in Newfoundland over a fifty-year period, beginning with the formation of the first Fisheries Commission in 1887.I argue that saltfish producers had to confront and overcome "the problem of fluctuation." This refers to both the biogeophysical processes controlling the quantity of cod extracted (reproduction, predation, ocean dynamics, etc.) and the biogeophysical processes determining the quality of saltfish produced and consumed (decomposition, preservation, socio-biology of consumption). In contrast to many studies of the political economy of fishing, and inspired by agrarian political economy, I develop a theoretical framework called "aquarian political economy" that expands the analytical focus beyond extraction to include the entire circulation of capital. Between 1887 and 1937, I document a number of attempts at reshaping biogeophysical processes to suit the dynamics of capital accumulation in the "upstream" (pre-extraction) and "downstream" (post-extraction) phases of production. These innovations proceeded by way of introducing abstract, scientific forms of measure, ...