ABSTRACT
As soon as I became acquainted with ethnographic research as an undergraduate student, I felt a strong desire to conduct fieldwork in a very remote setting. I eventually boiled my choice down to Anticosti Island or Iceland. Both settings evoked startling images and neither, as far as I knew, had had anthropologists or sociologists visit the area for field research. Anticosti Island (in the St. Lawrence Seaway and part of Quebec) proved to be inaccessible-a pulp and paper mill had leased the whole island and did not permit entry by those who did not work for the mill. Iceland, however, had a different story, and I felt compelled to follow through on my one remaining option to conduct fieldwork there. Between 1970 and 1983, I undertook four research trips to Iceland. The
first study took place in Árborg (a fictitious name), a southern village where I explored local-state relations; the second trip (1973-74) placed me in a northwest community where I developed an interest in studying the shrimpers (van den Hoonaard 1977); the third research stint occurred in 1980 when I returned to update empirical data for a book on these shrimpers (van den Hoonaard 1992); the fourth research stay, in 1983, concerned itself with crime in Iceland (van den Hoonaard 1991). However, it was my second research visit to Iceland that yielded fruitful and interesting conceptual developmentsas it still does even 36 years after having completed this research. Located in the northern North Atlantic, Iceland finds itself surrounded by
some of the richest fishing grounds in the world which, at the time of my research, supplied 85 per cent of Iceland’s GNP. A country with a homogeneous population of 235,000 (in 1973), it has among the highest living standards in the world, including a long life expectancy and very low infant mortality rate. Its 226 towns and villages are spread around the edge of the country, while its inlands consist of glaciers, lava fields, and sub-arctic deserts. My first locale of research (Árborg) had a rural population of 500;
my second locale that constitutes the subject of this chapter is situated in the extreme northwest, surrounded by magnificent and visually stunning fjords facing Greenland, just 150 miles away. The fjords contain an abundance of sealife, especially shrimp. The town (Kaupeyri, a fictitious name) is home to 3,100 people who rely principally on the fisheries. This chapter focuses on the shrimp fishermen in this community whose catches constitute 58-65 per cent of all shrimp catches in Iceland. This chapter highlights some conceptual developments while conducting
field research among the shrimp fishermen in Kaupeyri. It outlines a number of misconceptions I entered the field with in northwest Iceland, and suggests that once I jettisoned those misconceptions I was able to see my way more clearly in developing useful concepts. I had initially failed to see the interdependence of all the fisheries in the locale and certainly did not understand the impact of increasing shrimp catches on the traditional, larger fisheries. Only after I began to understand the social, technological, and ecological context of the shrimp fishery in Kaupeyri was I able to make progress in developing concepts. The chapter dwells on how the shrimp fishery was positioned as a low-status occupation and how insights from the literature on the sociology of work provided meaningful concepts. The chapter highlights some of these concepts, especially those that analyze the way the occupational group of shrimpers relates to the outside world, whether promoting their hierarchy of skills, sending delegates to centralist institutions to effect policy changes, or engaging in a discourse that sought to undermine the scientific work of the marine biologists. My research relied on using sensitizing concepts to learn what the shrimpers themselves were thinking and saying about these relationships to the outside world. Whereas my research in Árborg spoke about local-state relations as a
matter of governance among administrative, governing bodies (van den Hoonaard 1972), I decided in my next research stay to look at the fisheries themselves (rather than at administrative bodies). Within the fisheries, I concentrated my research on the community of 77 shrimpers on 42 boats, a compact fishery that, on the surface, appeared to be far less complex than if I were to study the far more pervasive traditional trawlers and longliners. Not knowing what to expect in the way of data or concepts in the new
locale, I immersed myself in the usual manner of any field researcher. I hung out on fishing boats, in the local library, at meetings of the fishery associations and unions, and in any other gatherings open to me, including the Saturday night dances. I maintained regular contact with a dozen shrimper families. I consulted 25 Icelandic books on local history and was able to use the mayor’s office, the local sheriff’s office, the manager of the ship-to-shore radio station, and local and national newspapers to find valuable information on vessel ownership, purchasing patterns, crew composition, catch records, and whereabouts of boats, among others. I extensively used historical and statistical data provided by the Fisheries Association of Iceland.
