Fishing with empathy: knowing fish and catching them on the Kemi River in Finnish Lapland

摘要

This paper develops an argument on the empathetic relationship between hunter and prey, as applied to the relations between small-scale fishers and fish. Drawing on ethnographic material from the Kemi River, and recent work on fishing, it suggests that although fishers often do not see the fish, they know their whereabouts and movements through an empathetic engagement with the fish. People on the Kemi do not see fish as merely the animal itself, but include in their empathetic relationship the behaviour and environment of the fish. An analysis of popular fishing techniques used subsequently illustrates that they represent what can be called an inversion of the fish's life story.