Grey Seals in an Ontological Turn: Local Knowledge, Environmental Change and Conservation in Kihnu, Estonia

Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, 4-5:30 p.m.
QC-4028

The seascape around Kihnu Island is a place where islanders, identities and livelihoods are continuously circulating within the discourses of conservation, regulation, and state power. Exploring the roots and paths of changing ontologies of seals and seal hunting this paper will show that the construction of both local knowledge and scientific knowledge is unstable and fragile. Engagement with the sea continuously shapes and transforms peoples' perceptions and experiences of the marine environment and these perceptions and experiences are, in turn, transformed into socially and politically acceptable forms of knowledge. In particular, I explore the ways that the Soviet past and perceptions, shifting scientific paradigms and practices, and unforeseen transformations in marine environment have interlocked with new understandings about seals and seascape ontologies that fundamentally challenge previously held notions that human and environment belong together. Kihnu Island community must continuously struggle to assert their cultural identity and local ways of managing marine resources. For their part, conservation officials must contend with EU regulations, government legislation and various other bureaucratic processes. It is in and through these interactions that knowledge about the sea is reconstructed and transformed.


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