John Law (Open University/ESRC CRESC Research
Centre)
Title TBCFishy Companions?
How many salmon are there in the city of fish? The answer is: six-hundred thousand. And how many people walk across its rootops? On most days, three. This is the reality - no, one of the realities - of the salmon farming industry. One person per 200,000 fish. What does this tell us about separation and significance?
I explore this question by laying down a series of narratives about the fish farm to generate multiplicites. Some don't feature fish at all. Others do, but incidentally. In just a few people come face to face with salmon. But then the question: do salmon ever come face to face with people? I don't know (this is work in progress), but I doubt it. How, then, to think about the glancing relations of significant otherness? How far do we want to, should we, press the metaphor of companionship? Here there are no right answers these questions. I am guided, however, by the intuition that salmon on the farm are both controlled unto death, and utterly elusive.
