SAMFUNN: Newcomers to the farm, Atlantic salmon between the wild and the industrial

Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) has been subject to a dramatic transition over the last three decades, from being a wild to becoming predominantly a domesticated species. This transition reflects a global increase in intensive and industrialised systems of fish farming in which Norway has taken on a key role. This poses particular challenges to Norwegian politics of nature and environmental policy and practice, as it makes Norway both a reservoir of salmon biodiversity, and a place in which the challenges t hat intensive salmon farming poses upon wild salmon fisheries are particularly acute. Through a focus on 'salmon in the making', this project will contribute to a knowledge-based platform for environmental policy. This approach will also enhance the futur e development of sustainability in aquaculture, as it will facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue, help achieve a broader (non-dualist) understanding of the interplay and internal opposition between the emergence of farmed Atlantic salmon as a commerciali zed artefact and the reproduction of wild Atlantic salmon in high-latitude environments, and help negotiate and understand the conditions for peaceful co-existence of farmed salmon and wild salmon. Methods include multisited ethnographic fieldwork (among coastal Saami, and on salmon farms and aquaculture conferences) and explicit comparison with similar conflicts in other high latitude regions (Alaska, Kamchatka, Chile, Tasmania). The project draws upon, and will contribute to theoretical debates that que stion and transcend boundaries of nature/culture and humans/animals in research questions and project design.