Environment, Labour and Capitalism at Sea : 'Working the Ground' in Scotland

Ethnographies of labour at sea must examine the experience of that labour, rather than contemplate the commodities that are produced, or resort to trite metaphors about watery 'flow' and 'immersion' This book takes up a labour-centred Marxist approach to human-environment relations, place and language, human-machine relations, technique and technology, political economy and violence. It explores how fishers make the sea productive through their labour, using technologies ranging from wooden boats to digital GPS plotters to create familiar places in a seemingly hostile environment. While most analyses of navigation assume that its purpose is orientation, virtually all navigation devices are used in techniques to solve the problem of relative position. Fishers frequently have to make impossible choices between safe seamanship and staying afloat economically, and the book describes the human impact of the high rate of deaths in the fishing industry. The lives of fishermen are affected by capitalist forces in the markets they sell to, forces that shape even the relations between fishers on the same boat. The book also discusses techniques people used to extend their bodies and perceptual abilities, the importance of controlling and delicately manipulating these extensions and the caring relationships of maintenance boats and machines required. A 'new anthropology of labour' and a 'decolonised anthropology dispenses with the disciplinary emphasis on the "outside" of capitalism and encompasses the dynamism and interconnections of global society'. This book explores how fishers make the sea productive through their labour, using technologies ranging from wooden boats to digital GPS plotters to create familiar places in a seemingly hostile environment. It shows how their lives are affected by capitalist forces in the markets they sell to, forces that shape even the relations between fishers on the same boat. Fishers frequently have to make impossible choices between safe seamanship and staying afloat economically, and the book describes the human impact of the high rate of deaths in the fishing industry. The book makes a unique contribution to understanding human-environment relations, examining the places fishers create and name at sea, as well as technologies and navigation practices. It combines phenomenology and political economy to offer new approaches for analyses of human-environment relations and technologies. Machine Generated Contents Note: Pt. I Metabolism Of Labour And Environment -- 1. Ẁorking The Ground' -- 2. From Wullie's Peak To The Burma: Naming Places At Sea -- Pt. Ii Techniques And Technologies -- 3. Techniques To Extend The Body And Its Senses -- 4. From Ẁhere Am I?' To Ẁhere Is That?' Rethinking Navigation -- Pt. Iii Capitalism And Class -- 5. Ỳou Just Can't Get A Price': The Difference Political Economy Makes -- 6. Structural Violence In Ecological Systems. Penny Mccall Howard. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 214-222) And Index. Electronic Reproduction. Baltimore, Md Available Via World Wide Web. Dedication Contents List of figures Series editor’s foreword Acknowledgements Map Introduction Part I A metabolism of labour and environment ‘Working the ground’ From Wullie’s Peak to the Burma: Naming places at sea Part II Techniques and technologies Techniques to extend the body and its senses From ‘where am I?’ to ‘where is that?’: Rethinking navigation Part III Capitalism and class ‘You just can’t get a price’: The difference political economy makes Structural violence in ecological systems Conclusion: Labour, class, environments and anthropology References Index Blank Page This book combines phenomenology and political economy to offer new approaches for analyses of human-environment relations and technologies. It contributes to the social studies of fisheries through an analysis of how fishing practices and social relations are shaped by political economy. -- .