Fishing in murky waters - ethics and politics of research on fisher knowledge

Fisher knowledge is increasingly seen as an important source of information for the management of fisheries and sought by both academics and managers. With reference to interviews with Norwegian fishers I will discuss problematic ethical and methodological aspects of such documentation. Fisher knowledge is embedded in a social and cultural context and transfer of knowledge is relational. Fisher knowledge is a professional asset, and contains information that is often known only to a small group of local people. Transferring fisher knowledge to science and management the question is what it implies for fishers to have their knowledge moved beyond its traditional borders. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.