THE VIRTUAL AQUARIUM - COMMODITY FICTION AND COD FISHING

This article deals with the commoditization and pricing of environment al 'goods', in particular the practice and social theory of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) in fisheries, emphasizing ethnographic mat erial related to the management system introduced in Iceland in 1984. Icelandic fisheries discourse, I argue, is increasingly textual and he gemonic, dominated by marine scientists, resource economists and state officials. At the same time; the allocation and exchange of quotas ar e matters of an ongoing moral debate. This debate, I suggest, reflects the politics of independence and equity in Icelandic history as well as a deeper concern in Western society with the status of money and mo netary exchange, a concern that has a number of parallels in other par ts of the world. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.