| Summary: | This text has two starting points. One is a compelling story by Bruno Latour, "Circulating reference" , showing how samples of soil from the Amazon Forest become translated – and transformed – into a scientific paper. Latour shows the chain of translations step by step, and we borrowed his method in our study. The other starting point is a video called "Tørrfesk. Fra Lofot skrei til stoccafisso ", conceived by the Norwegian anthropologist Helge A. Wold (Wold, 1987), who provides a commentary for it. It shows how cod caught in Lofoten becomes dried, and then exported to Italy, where it is a staple of legends, tradition, regional cuisine and, much as in Norway, local employment. The video was created by the museum at the University of Tromsø as part of an effort to document the historical roots of traditional industries. The video gives a thorough description of the chain of translation from catch to consumption, and we decided to follow it, allowing it to be the guide in our investigations. For the reason of access we were studying a connection between Røst (a fishing village on Lofoten) and Sandrigo (a village near Vicenza), whereas the movie concentrates on analogous connection between Ballstad (another fishing village on Lofoten) and Badalucco (a village near Genoa). The chain of translation is, however, quite similar. We have also located a video produced in Italy in 1996, illustrating the cooperation between Sandrigo and Røst, made cooperatively by a Norwegian (Petter Johannesen, script, narration) and an Italian director (Massimo Magipinto). The two videos, and the relevant literature, were complemented by interviews conducted in Røst and Sandrigo.
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