Recreational fishing and citizenship: a sensory ethnography of fishermen with Asian ancestry, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

This paper draws on a sensory ethnography conducted with migrant recreational fishermen of Asian ancestry in a context of heightened scientific concerns about over-fishing. We offer the concept of recreational fishing assemblage to consider the affective and emotional dimensions of recreational fishing experiences. Our conceptual framework builds on feminist scholarship that appreciates human-non-human entanglements in the constitutions of subjectivities, specifically environmental policies, ideas, fishing equipment and affect. Our rhizoanalysis offers insights to how racialized and gendered bodies intersect with environmental citizenship to territorialize some recreational fishing spots for white bodies. In this spirit, we offer an interpretation of the contradictory ways that citizenship is lived through the experiences of recreational fishing.

Keywords:

• Ethnicity
• environment
• ethics
• gender
• sensory ethnography

Acknowledgments

We thank our participants for consenting to participate in this project and sharing their insights to recreational fishing. We are indebted to those who have provided feedback on various drafts of this manuscript including three anonymous reviewers and Sarah Anderson.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded through a Discovery Project awarded by Australian Research Council, ‘Sustainability and climate change adaption: unlocking the potential of ethnic diversity’ (DP140101165).

Notes on contributors

Gordon Waitt

Gordon Waitt is Senior Professor in the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS), School of Geography and Sustainable Communities at the University of Wollongong. His research interests draw upon feminist geographical perspectives in gender and emotion.

Michelle Voyer

Michelle Voyer is Senior Research Fellow in the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong. Her research focuses on the human dimensions of marine conservation and resource management, and the nexus of social science and policy

Collette Fontaine

Collette Fontaine is Bachelor of Science (Human Geography Honours) Graduate, University of Wollongong.