Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Dragging trawlers to the sea bed and causing fish stock depletion are only few of the reasons large-scale fishers – operators of commercial level fishing – are associated with destructive practices that portrays them as indifferent to nature. This study challenges this dominant portrayal by examining how care can exist within large-scale fishing when understood as something expressed through practice rather than through emotional language.

Focusing on the context of Greece, the study asks: how can care exist in large-scale fishing? To address this question, the study followed a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with eleven skippers and visual material shared by participants. This research approach allowed fishers to present themselves through their own experiences and values rather than being treated as components of extractive processes. Initially, the research analysed care through discourse. However, given the limited expression of affective language, the methodological approach shifted towards identifying care in practices. The analysis was then guided by Social Practice Theory, which understands practices as the interlink of competences (knowledge and skills), materials (ojects), and meanings (values and purposes).

The findings show that care large-scale fishers is more frequently enacted than anticipated. Fishers practice care through protecting the sea in ways they belive sustain its ecological balance, educating younger generations and the public, and advocating for regulations aligned with their understanding of environmental responsibility. At the same time, they construct care narratives that legitimise their practices into forms of stewardship. The study also reveals how systemic and normative pressures shape the ways in which care can be expressed within this profession.

By including a group largely absent from studies of human–nature relationships, this research contributes both socially and academically to a more nuanced understanding of how care for the environment is practiced and understood by key stakeholders of the sea.