Between the devil and the deep blue sea: negotiating ambiguous physical and social boundaries within the shark fishing industry of Bass Strait, Australia.

This thesis addresses questions of identity and ontological legitimacy within the commercial shark fishing community of Bass Strait, Australia. The implications of competing discourses for the integrity of fisher identity, environmental conservation and public narratives on environmental 'crises' are considered. Ethnographic material is drawn on and developed with commercial fishers and, to a lesser extent, fisheries 'experts', to explore ambiguities in understandings of individuality and perceptions of the marine environment. Informing this analysis are theories of practice, particularly notions of embodied relationships and knowledge, the role of 'luck' in enabling a particular expression of 'individuality', the 'skipper effect', a consideration of nation-state sanctioned and popular media representations of the environment, and the peculiarly Australian experience and representation of individuality, both as performance and as trope. These themes are considered against a backdrop of the physical and social activities involved in commercial fishing, and the 2001 nation-state-initiated introduction of an Individual Transferable Quota management system.

本论文聚焦澳大利亚巴斯海峡（Bass Strait）商业鲨鱼捕捞社群中的身份认同与本体论合法性（ontological legitimacy）议题。本论文探讨了竞争性话语对捕捞者身份认同完整性、环境保护以及公众对环境“危机”的叙事所产生的影响。本论文通过与商业渔民合作开展民族志（Ethnography）调研并整理相关资料，并辅以少量渔业“专家”的材料，以探究个体认知层面的模糊性与对海洋环境的感知差异。支撑本分析的理论基础为实践理论（Practice Theory），具体涵盖具身关系与具身知识的概念、“运气”在促成特定“个体性”表达中所扮演的角色、“船长效应（Skipper Effect）”、对国家认可与主流媒体环境表征的考察，以及澳大利亚独有的个体性体验与表征——其既作为表演行为，亦作为修辞范式。本论文将上述主题置于商业捕捞所涉及的物质与社会活动背景，以及2001年由国家推行的个体可转让配额（Individual Transferable Quota, ITQ）管理制度的实施背景下展开探讨。