Eyes on the Seas: A digital political ecology of fisheries monitoring programs

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the emergence of the private fisheries observer industry, and the introduction of digital electronic monitoring technologies, in conjunction with the quota-based management system in the U.S. West Coast groundfish fishery. Through interviews, participant observation and textual and discourse analysis, I investigate how the outsourcing of data collection has impacted fisheries science-management agendas and fishermen, and how digital monitoring reconfigures socioecological relations in fisheries. I synthesize across political ecology, science and technology studies, and digital conservation studies, to theorize the emergence of a digital environmental governance regime in fisheries and conservation more broadly.