Socially Constructing Pacific Salmon

Rik Scarce 1
Montana State University

What does Anature@ mean? This general question, central to the social construction of nature, is addressed here by examining one of nature=s particulars, Pacific salmon, and by looking at how one group of people, salmon biologists, imbue the fish with meaning. Based upon historical, comparative, and qualitative data, it appears that nature is socially constructed through both cognitive and physical processes. ASalmon@--and indirectly nature--emerges not as a monolithic, timeless, certain entity, but rather as one that is manipulable, fleeting, and the product of a variety of social relations. In particular, public policy and economics appear to have profoundly influenced salmon biologists= cognitive and physical constructions of salmon.

Nature exists ephemerally, not eternally. Historians and etymologists tell us that nature as an identifiable concept can be traced back in the Western tradition for about 4,000 years; there has been a nature since the Greeks created the term that initially meant Aeverything,@ phuysis. This meaning was passed to natura, the Latin root of our word Anature,@ and nature=s denotation further evolved through the centuries (Lewis, 1967). Today, nature--connotative nature, a problematic, meaning-filled concept--is constantly re-made by society, often in subtle ways. Moreover, some argue that science is at the forefront of the changing meanings of nature because it is vested with the ability to create the Anew power@ in society (Latour, 1987; Zuckerman, 1988), a theme first sounded by Robert Merton (1968/1973). Politicians, corporations, and even the most radical, anti-technological environmental groups invoke science to support their constructions of nature (Scarce, 1990).

This article presents a data-based theoretical approach to understanding science=s social constructions of nature. Following an overview of social constructivism and the methods employed in this study, I use salmon biology and salmon hatcheries to illustrate the two modes of socially constructing salmon: cognitive constructions and physical/behavioral constructions. These demonstrate the complexity of both science=s and society=s relationship with salmon, and with nature more generally.

Berger and Luckmann's Constructivism

Emphasizing Meaning

This study=s analytical approach was guided by the classical constructivism of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The use of this approach bears elaboration because the Asocial construction" of any phenomenon has become a taken-for-granted in social and humanistic studies, a label whose theoretical underpinnings often are overlooked or are treated as unproblematical.

In their book, The Social Construction of Reality (1966), Berger and Luckmann argued that we cannot help but construct social facts. Reality is given meaning--constructed--both through micro-level social interaction and through macro-level activities of powerful social institutions, such as political and economic systems. This multi-level, meaning-giving activity is at the heart of constructivism, as some argue it is at the heart of all sociology (Fararo, 1990).

From this key premise Berger and Luckmann argued that what is taken as fact in societies is relative; social facts are dependent upon the societies in which they are created. All that is Aknown@ is contextualized by social circumstances--intimate interactions and diffuse, powerful social forces. Societies, and sub-groups within them, create knowledge through their interpretations of the material world around them. There are no objective social facts in a universal sense, only facts created in particular social milieus at certain historical moments (Newman, 1995).

Enter the AStrong Program@

Even as Asocial constructivism@ has become the rage in sociology, Berger and Luckmann=s approach has been largely ignored, with some peril. An apt example of these difficulties emerged from one of the most active areas of scholarship in social constructivism, the social construction of science and technology (SCOST). Both the classical approach and SCOST share core concerns. Like Berger and Luckmann before them, SCOST scholars such as Latour, Bijker, Pinch, and Knorr-Cetina (Bijker, Hughes, & Pinch, 1987; Latour, 1987; Knorr-Cetina & Mulkay, 1983; Zuckerman, 1988), have emphasized meaning creation as inherently problematical. Two of the foremost SCOST advocates put it simply: Ascientific findings are open to more than one interpretation. This shifts the focus for the explanation of scientific developments from the natural world to the social world@ (Pinch & Bijker, 1987). This is essentially an application of Berger and Luckmann=s notion of the relativity of reality.

However, distinctions among these constructivisms emerge when considering some of the finer details of the dominant approach in SCOST, known as the Astrong program@ or Astrict@ constructivism (Spector & Kitsuse, 1977; Kitsuse & Schneider, 1989). In particular, the strong program is guided by an idealist philosophical belief that Areality@ is a mental construct. In contrast, Berger and Luckmann did not question the existence of material reality. While they were not immune to philosophical concerns, Berger and Luckmann appear to have recognized that, as sociologists, ontology and epistemology were not central to their interests. They wrote that Athe subjective experience of everyday life@ that is at the core of phenomenology Arefrains from any causal or genetic hypotheses, as well as from assertions about the ontological status of the phenomena analyzed@ (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 20). Rather, what was crucial were the social processes that gave material reality its meanings.

A second distinction emerges from the strong constructivists= philosophical idealism, for they easily slip into an epistemological quagmire wherein their accounts of science are constructed as truthful and stable, yet science=s accounts of nature have no such philosophically solid ground upon which to rest. For instance, Pinch and Bijker wrote that, Ain investigating the causes of beliefs, sociologists should be impartial to the truth or falsity of the beliefs, and that such beliefs should be explained symmetrically@ (Pinch & Bijker, 1987, p. 18). This Asymmetrical@ analysis places the constructivist observer in a privileged, objective position that elevates the observer=s epistemology above all others. In so doing, strong constructivism deceives itself, for constructions of constructions nevertheless are constructions.

A similar observation prompted Stephen Fuchs to argue that social constructivists should leave philosophical questions to philosophers. Constructivists should accept the reflexivity they impose upon others, reject Athe discredited metaphors of realist epistemologies,@ and admit that their studies Aare simply self-exemplifying@ (Fuchs, 1992, p. 30); constructivist analyses, as constructions themselves, possess no unique claim to truth. Accepting this simultaneously dismisses epistemological angst and takes constructivism to heart.

Berger and Luckmann=s more modest constructivism never asserted the vaunted status that strong constructivists seek. Theirs was a sociology of knowledge. The classical approach provides social analysts with an insightful critical perspective from which to work, one that does not rest upon philosophical concepts that have been debated through the ages. Moreover, this is a general framework for analysis, not a road map. Berger and Luckmann encourage researchers to consider historical context and to appreciate both interactional and macro-level forces as they examine the emergence and maintenance of meaning. Beyond that, the specifics are left to the researcher.

One serious shortcoming in classical and strong constructivism is worthy of note, however. Despite their attention to the role of macro-level social forces in constructing social reality, Berger and Luckmann said almost nothing about the place of power in shaping and reinforcing constructions. The same is true for the strong constructivists. Nevertheless, Berger and Luckmann=s emphasis on the role of macro-level social forces in shaping meaning easily admits power into the analysis. This article identifies some of the powerful social institutions that affect the meanings of salmon and examines how those institutions bracket the constructions available to scientists.

Socially Constructing Nature

Despite the spread of constructivism in sociology and in many other disciplines, environmental sociologists have only recently begun to consider the social construction of nature. A measure of how far environmental sociologists are behind others may be found in Cronon=s (1995) major edited volume of interdisciplinary perspectives on the social construction of nature; it includes no chapters by sociologists. Perhaps this is because the initial reaction by some respected sociologists to the social construction of nature was quite negative (Dunlap, 1994; Murphy, 1994). Nevertheless, other sociologists have developed a range of theoretical approaches (Hannigan, 1995; Buttel, Hawkins, & Power, 1990; Buttel & Taylor, 1992; Greider & Garkovich, 1994; Taylor & Buttel, 1992) and at least one policy analysis study (Hajer, 1995).

A similar line of inquiry has emerged in sociology but outside of environmental sociology proper. This work by symbolic interactionists and constructivists, virtually ignored by environmental sociologists, has anticipated the general Asocial construction of nature@ by exploring how pets (Hickrod & Schmitt, 1982; Nash, 1989), specific species of animals (Fine & Christofordies, 1991; Cantwell, 1993), animals generally (Arluke & Sanders, 1996), and mushrooms (Fine, n.d.) are treated as symbols and are given meaning by owners, experimenters, viewers, pickers, and others. Arluke and Sanders contrasted this literature to that which predominates in sociology, writing, AMost sociological research is anthropocentric (or human-centered) and focuses on relationships among humans@ (Arluke & Sanders, 1996, p. 2). This is as true for environment-oriented sociologists as for any others. In much of the environmental sociology research, animals, plants, and inorganic entities like canyons and streams are the objects of social attitudes and behaviors, but it is rare that they are treated ecocentrically, as subjects that can be examined to reveal deeper insights about the roles of particular social forces in the realities of persons, animals, and places.

The present research is in keeping with the dominant themes in studies of the sociology of human-animal relationships in that it places salmon in the center of the analysis and "unpacks" the salmon to reveal the social processes that give rise to the meanings attributed to the fish. Moreover, I seek to bridge the literatures on environmental sociology and the sociology of human-animal relationships by developing theoretical concepts useful for understanding not only the social construction of a single species, but of Anature@ generally.

Methods

This study was developed through comparative analysis of historical documents and qualitative data, including interviews and participant-observation. The goal was to develop a Agrounded theory@--an inductive theory rooted in data--of salmon biologists= social constructions of salmon (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Charmaz, 1983, 1990, 1995; Strauss, 1987; Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). I interviewed 24 salmon biologists from the U.S., Canada, and Native American tribes, and spoke with numerous others in non-interview encounters. Those interviewed included 10 federal agency employees (five Canadian, all of whom worked at a large government research station, and five from the U.S., including three salmon hatchery biologists and two agency researchers), nine university professors (one of whom was Canadian), three state agency employees, one forestry corporation biologist, and one private consultant. I conducted fieldwork at two salmon biology conferences--one of regional members of the American Fisheries Society that brought together American and Canadian biologists, the other of Indian tribal biologists--and I attended numerous public hearings on salmon-related topics at which salmon biologists were present. I also viewed biologists at work in fish hatcheries, accompanied them as they gathered data on rivers and in other settings, and spent several months observing biologists in a laboratory that conducted DNA research on salmon.

My initial interview participants were selected both because of convenience--they worked near my university--and because several were highly respected in the salmon biology community, judging from their publication records, which I checked using Science Citations Index and a major volume reviewing the research in Pacific salmon life histories (Groot & Margolis, 1991). However, in most cases I sought out biologists whose names had been given to me by their peers in a Asnowball sampling@ approach (Babbie, 1995).

The interviews were semi-scheduled--I always had a list of questions to ask. However, the specific questions changed considerably over the course of my research; no two interviewees were asked all the same questions, and new topics arose in all but the final interviews. This reflects my grounded theory analytical approach; at each step along the way the topics of interest emerged from my analysis of the previous round of interviewing. The interviews lasted an average of 75 minutes and were tape recorded. After the tapes were transcribed the interviews were coded and the results compared to the previous interviews. New topics were identified that were then examined in more depth through subsequent interviews until no new issues emerged.

Cognitive and Physical/Behavioral Constructions

Salmon biologists socially construct salmon in two fundamental ways, and the remainder of this article explores these analytical concepts. Cognitive constructions are those that reveal meanings ensconced in attitudes, values, and beliefs; they are found in texts and discourse. Physical and behavioral constructions are embodied and enacted--as opposed to spoken or written--sources of meaning; they are found, for example, in a society=s technologies (such as dams, fish hatcheries, and fishing gear), in its acted-out rituals and ceremonies (a Native American tribe=s first salmon feast, a public hearing on a proposed new dam and its effect upon fish), and in day-to-day nonverbal interactions (including human-to-human and human-to-salmon behaviors such as laboratory dissection of fish or anglers' sport fishing. In the following sections, I treat these approaches to constructing salmon in turn.

Cognitive Constructions: Scientists Speaking Salmon

In a thumbnail sketch, this is the life history of salmon Ain the wild@ as scientists understand it: The seven species of Pacific salmon found in North America are known by names like sockeye, chinook, chum, silver, pink, steelhead, and cutthroat; two other species live only in Asia. The genus name for all nine is Oncorhynchus, Latin for Ahook-nosed,@ from the curvature that male salmons= jaws take on at spawning time.

Other commonalities in appearance and behavior link the species as well. For instance, they all have a complex and fascinating life cycle. They are born in gravelly streams carved by glaciers. After emerging from their stony nursery, the fry may spend virtually no time at all in their natal waters or they may remain there for up to two years. Eventually, they swim toward the ocean as Asmolts,@ undergoing extensive transformations that alter their body chemistry and enable them to live in salt water. After one to five years maturing in the ocean, where their weight increases a hundredfold, their body chemistry again changes, this time reversing itself so that they adapt to living in fresh water. They swim inland to the same stream where they were born, in some instances traveling 900 miles to reach spawning grounds 7,000 feet above sea level. There they mate and, with the exception of some steelhead trout, die shortly thereafter (steelhead were only recently reclassified as salmon; the Atrout@ label persists even among biologists).

Biologists who study these remarkable fish increasingly find their work enmeshed in economics and politics. These powerful macro-structural institutions exert a profound influence on biologists= constructions of salmon, at both cognitive and physical/behavioral levels. Though they are not the only relevant macro-level influences, these appear to be the most influential. A Canadian government researcher, grudgingly acknowledging this new world order for salmon biology in which researcher freedom is displaced by political and economic expediency, observed, ACertainly in government labs and central agencies, that sort of thing, any notion that you would do undisturbed research at some distance from an actual pressing question of the day that deals with resource management, any notion that you would do that with that remoteness to it has long vanished. There=s just no room for it.@ Scientists= work is inescapably and directly linked to capital and to the state, forces from which they long felt they were at least somewhat insulated.

Another Canadian was more accepting of the impact of economics and politics in his construction of salmon. Explaining why he researches sockeye salmon in particular, he said, AIt=s a very satisfying species to work on from a whole range of perspectives. One is it integrates a lot of the background experience that I=ve built up to date and makes best use of it. Second, from a commercial and practical standpoint, they=re the most valuable of the Pacific salmon species. They generate the most economic rent back to the general population.@ In recent years biologists in both Canada and the U.S. have come under increasing pressure from governments and corporations to increase the Aeconomic rent@ that these fish Agenerate.@ These public policy and economic pressures reflect a variety of concerns, including public and scientific criticism of fishery enhancement programs such as fish hatcheries, global economic trends that compel nations to engage in international trade to improve balance of payments and shore up their currencies, and anxieties about ecological trends like declining salmon runs.

These social pressures exert a profound influence on biologists= cognitive constructions of salmon. Salmon increasingly come to be viewed in utilitarian terms, as entities for human use and little else. Further, as governments= fiscal woes mount and as the fishing industry demands to catch more fish, biologists find themselves making their case for more salmon research based on the fish=s political and economic importance. This only reinforces the place of the utilitarian construction. A U.S. academic researcher, also involved in studies of sockeye, told me,

There=s lots of interest in the stock differentiation of salmon (distinguishing different populations of salmon to avoid over fishing smaller populations, or Astocks@), so that creates a financial basis for this type of question. That wasn=t a driving factor at all in doing research, but the money was.... When I said that my Ph.D. research was really not financially based and there was very little interest in sockeye-kokanee, the interest in sockeye and kokanee has since exploded. And it=s exploded because of sockeye salmon as an endangered species.... Salmon had many of the same elements as whitefish did, and salmon are closely related to whitefish, same family. There=s a lot more money in salmon research than in whitefish research, so that=s why I went to study salmon.

Here the utilitarian cognitive construction emerges as simultaneously personal and structural. Biologists study the Amoney fish@ because those species furnish the biologists with the opportunity to conduct research. Economically and politically important, salmon become cognitively constructed as vehicles for status attainment. For while research on salmon allows biologists to fulfill personal vocational interests and to earn a living, the more politically and economically important species, like sockeye, also provide salmon biologists with greater funding and publishing opportunities, thus increasing individual biologists= standing within the biology community.

In elaborating on this cognitive construction of salmon as political and economic entities, it should be noted that it is more than a bit odd that this reality is new to fisheries biology. AFisheries@ is a biological study that has been driven by economic concerns from its inception nearly a century ago (Benson, 1970). Fisheries biologists are socialized throughout their training to emphasize the economic uses of fish. The dominant role of economics in the discipline is never in doubt to those trained in the prestigious schools of fisheries; indeed, those schools were established by groups with strong economic interests in fish production (Benson, 1970).

Yet until recently biologists have been able to entertain an expansive view of what constitutes fisheries research. In the Aold days@ that came to an end in the 80s, a biologist could study the details of salmon Alife history@ such as mate selection and juvenile salmon behavior simply because the research filled a gap in the knowledge about the fish. In turn, others in the discipline could use that new knowledge to fulfill economic or policy goals like improving runs or catches. The discipline still was the primary force directing researchers= constructions of the salmon.

Today, however, biologists are witnessing a shift in macro-level forces on their work. No longer is science the primary determinant of research needs. Instead, politics and economics impress upon scientists a new sense of urgency, and these pressures lead to a narrowing cognitive construction of salmon. Even to biologists the salmon become embodiments of public policy and tools for economic gain. Most revealing sociologically is not so much the idea that salmon have come to be mere surrogates for political or economic power in the biologists= eyes as that salmon have become political and economic objects for powerful social forces, and these have transformed biology. The transformation occurs by controlling resources, especially by funding highly specific projects directed at an Aactual pressing question of the day.@ The effect is to control the research questions available to biologists, and this affects their cognitive constructions of the salmon. Political and economic entities resocialize biologists to view salmon in utilitarian terms. Salmon long have been constructed as important economic entities, whether the society was pre-Columbian (Hunn, 1992) or industrial. But never before have those who study salmon been compelled to adopt a policy and economics-based cognitive construction in order to pursue their work.

Recognition of the compelled shift in cognitive construction has left biologists questioning their individual and collective future. One biologist said, AI=m frankly concerned about what=s happening to research because I think it=s being affected too much by the weathervane, harum-scarum problems of management and too much by the weathervanes of politics.@ The discipline=s historical yet sometimes tenuous ties to economics and politics have almost become its exclusive determinants.

It should be noted that, while this analysis represents an interpretation of the dominant scientific cognitive construction of salmon, a minority of biologists are countering the utilitarian view. They argue that salmon possess an Ainherent worth@ entirely apart from their economic value, and the Asystem@ in which they rightfully belong is an ecosystem, not an economic system. Said a Washington state biologist, AThey are not only a commodity resource, which is how they have been viewed most often in the past, but also an animal that is part of a very complex ecosystem which we are a part of, deserving of our respect and appreciation for its value. I=d like to see far more appreciation for the salmon=s welfare than we=ve given it in the past.@ Such ecocentric cognitive constructions--developed as reactions to current policy, economic, ecological, and social trends--may have substantial impact in the future. For now they are an emergent perspective that challenges the dominant construction of salmon directed by the most powerful social institutions.

Physical and Behavioral Constructions: Scientists Building Salmon

Northwest Fish Hatchery, where I interviewed and observed several biologists, embodies the physical and behavioral construction of salmon as few other artifacts do. Scientists there mass-produce salmon in a controlled process, an assembly line in which salmon are physically constructed deliberately and rationally, emphasizing efficiency and productivity. Built in the 70s, the hatchery was required as mitigation for a massive dam that completely blocked the ANorthwest River@ to upstream-migrating salmon. The entire Northwest River salmon Arun,@ or population, was to be perpetuated in the hatchery. But perpetuation was less important than production, and salmon hatcheries were designed as massive fish production enterprises. They are biological versions of automobile factories.

Biologists initially argued that salmon produced at Northwest Hatchery would be the same fish as Northwest River salmon, that hatchery fish would be indistinguishable in any way from their wild ancestors. However, beginning the first year that the hatchery raised fish, biologists re-created the run in the sense that they made it anew. Biologists were under intense political pressure not merely to keep the run going but to produce even more salmon than historically returned to the Northwest River. Doing so would prove to politicians and anglers, a powerful constituency, that the millions spent on the hatchery were justified. But, in responding to this pressure, the scientists inadvertently physically constructed an entirely new salmon run.

For example, the biologists shifted the timing of the run simply by breeding the first fish to return to the hatchery with one another, and, once enough eggs were fertilized to produce the next generation, the remainder of the fish arriving at the hatchery to spawn were killed without being bred. (The phrase Abeing bred@ emphasizes biologists= practice of Amating@ fish themselves, mixing milt and eggs in buckets rather than allowing fish to spawn on their own, uncontrolled; this may be the most explicit example of the physical construction of salmon.) A biologist explained what occurred in those early days: ASo over a few years, and this happened here, we got the peak of the run that=s now in the first week of April in this hatchery. Well, out here in the wild the first week of April is probably not the peak; we=re probably moving them a month ahead.@ Scientists believe that run timing is genetically determined and that such a severe shift in timing--moving the peak of the normal distribution-shaped run from early May to early April--corresponds with a loss of genetic diversity of unknown magnitude. Hatchery production techniques, combined with biologists= incomplete knowledge of the salmon, produced a new fish rather than perpetuating the old Awild@ one, as was biologists= stated intention. A new salmon was literally constructed.

Actually, the hatchery physically constructed two new salmon. One was characterized by its altered run timing and other changes, such as the increased survivability and weight of the smolts (due to the Aideal@ hatchery conditions which protect juvenile fish from predators and allow them to eat all they want) and the reduced average weight of adults.

The other new salmon was one of ambiguous parentage, fish neither of entirely hatchery nor wild origin, the Anatural@ salmon. A hatchery biologist explained, AWe call it >natural spawning.= There=s a terminology that is starting to get uniform. Natural spawning is where you have hatchery influence and wild spawning is where there has been little or no hatchery influence. Of course, this (hatchery) has...influence here, so it would be what we would consider natural spawning.... How successful it is, we aren=t sure.@

In other words, some Ahatchery@ salmon, those bred by biologists, return to spawn the next generation in the streams and rivers near hatcheries but not in the hatcheries as biologists intend them to do. They are unintentionally beyond the control of the hatchery operators, like the breeding dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (Crichton, 1990). And to hear biologists speak of it, the consequences are nearly as disastrous. In this case, the gene pool of the wild salmon is Apolluted@ when hatchery and wild salmon mate. Recent research indicates that hatcheries may need periodic infusions of genes from wild fish in order to avoid genetic problems, but if hatchery and wild fish have been mating, the truly wild genes my be difficult or impossible to locate. Hatcheries may inadvertently doom themselves.

The Complete Picture: Combining Cognitive and Physical/Behavioral Constructions

Hatcheries have been the basis for two reproductive classes of salmon: one is the hatchery salmon, the other the Anatural,@ part wild/part hatchery salmon. Both of these salmon, whether deliberately or accidentally physically constructed by biologists, are cognitively constructed by the biologists as genetically and behaviorally inferior to a third class, wild salmon. The wild salmon are cognitively constructed as the ideal salmon, one that scientists argue is essential and unconstructed (Soulé, 1995) but which is supremely meaning-filled. The wild salmon is a Apure,@ Apristine@ salmon (Russell, 1995; Evernden, 1992) uncorrupted by human activity. Thus, hatchery biologists= cognitive construction of the wild salmon is at odds with the physical constructions they create. Wild salmon are the perfect, unadulterated, sacred salmon; hatchery salmon are tainted, unnatural, social in origin, and profane (Durkheim, 1954).

The resolution of this contradiction between cognitive and physical constructions might be found at the nexus of biology and economics. Wild salmon populations can survive indefinitely (barring human-caused or natural catastrophe), and as such, theoretically, will yield a constant economic return through commercial and recreational fishing. Thus, the closer hatchery fish can be brought to the wild ideal, the greater the potential economic returns. That which is nearer the pure is both ecologically viable and economically valuable.

However, biologists find it difficult to achieve this ideal, complete construction, to say the least. A remarkable example comes from a conference presentation by biologists who worked for a Native American tribal hatchery. Their intention was to Afully utilize@ the carrying capacity of a portion of one river system where coho salmon had spawned for millennia (carrying capacity is Athe maximum population of a given species which a particular habitat can support indefinitely@ [Catton, 1980, p. 272]). The scientists captured wild fish, bred them in the hatchery, and released what they computed to be the proper number of smolts into streams to Amaximize yields@ so that the stream operated at full capacity. They reported, AIn situations where seeding levels are adequate to achieve, or nearly adequate to achieve, carrying capacity, (they) have resulted in a loss of naturally produced fish (that is, fish born in the streams) through replacement.... On a system-wide basis, fry supplementation...would likely result in benefits to the river and to the fishery less than half the time.@ The scientists= efforts achieved few of their intended goals, and in some instances the practice harmed wild salmon. Yet again, the intended physical construction resulted in unintended consequences that actually harmed the revered, and often dwindling, Anatural@ (wild) fish populations.

Even when its control fails, as it inevitably does in ways similar to the breakdowns that large technological systems experience (Perrow, 1984), biology=s presence is felt. Only by cognitively constructing a pure wild salmon can scientists understand what they physically create at salmon hatcheries. There, salmon the ideal is corrupted and multiple new salmon are constructed literally and cognitively.

Conclusion

Meanings are not definitions; they are not directly apprehensible. Rather, they emerge from the consideration of a variety of interactions, and they must be interpreted to be understood. The interactions outlined here constitute what phenomenologist Don Ihde refers to as Aembodiment relations.@ He writes that these Asimultaneously magnify or amplify and reduce or place aside what is experienced through them@ (Ihde, 1990, p. 76). For example, whenever any social group imbues a salmon with meaning--whether by speaking of it, carving a likeness of it into a piece of wood, producing it in a fish hatchery, or inserting a microchip in its back to study it--it is no longer the being as simply experienced. By magnifying the produced salmon through our hatcheries and other technologies we reduce the experience of the salmon.

As Berger and Luckmann argued, this is inevitable. For nothing is more central to humans as social beings than our ability to communicate and to work together using tools. Communication is impossible without abstracting experiences into meanings, and our use of tools inheres meaning-filled activity as well. Our cognitive and physical constructions of salmon impose meanings upon the fish, in a social sense creating them.

What does this allow us to say about the social construction of nature more generally? I think the general categories of cognitive and physical constructions are likely to hold for numerous species and for places as well--such as streams, canyons, and the atmosphere--although elaboration of these categories, including the extent to which cognitive and physical/behavioral constructions are temporally distinct, will be worthwhile. Thus, those categories may be useful when particulars are considered. But nature as other or as everything is another matter. The question is begged: is nature as a whole socially constructed, or does its construction proceed only through particulars, such as salmon? That question remains a challenge.

Notes

1. Correspondence should be sent to: Rik Scarce, Department of Sociology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, 59717-0238; electronic mail: rscarce@montana.edu. My thanks to Sue Monahan, Petra Uhrig, and the reviewers for their helpful comments on drafts of this article.

2. Berger and Luckmann, too, noted the importance of reflexivity to constructivists, although their approach fell short of clarifying the issue. They wrote,

To be sure, the sociology of knowledge, like all empirical disciplines that accumulate evidence concerning the relativity and determination of human thought, leads toward epistemological questions concerning sociology itself as well as any other scientific body of knowledge....How can I be sure, say, of my sociological analysis of American middle-class mores in view of the fact that the categories I use for this analysis are conditioned by historically relative forms of thought...?

Far be it for us to brush aside such questions. All we would contend here is that these questions are not themselves part of the empirical discipline of sociology. They properly belong to the methodology of the social sciences....The sociology of knowledge, along with the other epistemological troublemakers among the empirical sciences, will "feed" problems to this methodological inquiry. It cannot resolve these problems within its own proper frame of reference. (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 13-14).

3. The related literature from other disciplines is extensive, though in general it does not speak to the range of concerns raised by sociologists. For example, see: in anthropology Douglas (1966, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1985) and Lawrence (1982, 1985, 1997); in psychology Dake (1991, 1992) and Dake and Wildavsky (1990); in English Pauly (1987); in environmental education Russell (1995); in environmental history Cronon (1983), Evernden (1992), Jardine, Secord, and Spary (1996), Merchant (1989); in environmental studies Bird (1987) and Rogers (1994); in geography Goin (1996), Mugerauer (1995), and Simmons (1993); in philosophy Vogel (1996); and interdisciplinary works include edited volumes by Soulé and Lease (1993) and Cronon (1995).

4. "Northwest Fish Hatchery" is an agglomeration of several hatcheries observed during the course of my research.

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