The social construction and reconstruction of a scientific crisis : a sociological analysis of Northern Cod stock assessments from 1977 to 1990

Abstract

There is, at present, a generally perceived crisis in the Atlantic Canadian fishery. From one perspective, this is nothing new as the history of the fishery can be portrayed as a long series of crises. What is new is that--with Canada's extension of its territorial limits to 200 miles in 1977--a strong, institutionalized role for science was created in the fisheries management process expressly to help avoid the boom and bust cycles that had plagued the fishery in the past. -- This work takes the position that the descriptions and interpretations of reality offered by fisheries stock assessment science during the period from 1977 to the present can be understood as an artifact of multi-levelled, interactive social processes--that in many respects this perspective yields a more plausible explanation of scientific knowledge production than do the scientists' own reconstructions.