Blurred Borders of the Waterscape of Fishing Competition Practice

This research focuses on the enactment of trolling competition practice in inland waters of Lapland, Northern Finland. The theoretical perspective draws upon literature on practice theories (Schatzki, 2002; Reckwitz, 2002), micro-mobilities (Sheller, 2014), posthumanism (Kennedy et al., 2013) and literature that discuss the body and the senses (Howes, 2005; Humberstone, 2011). Through sensory ethnographic approach (Valtonen et al. 2010; Markuksela 2021) this research illuminates that the practice of trolling is a realm of fluid borderlands, in which various human and non-human material borders are experienced and met. However, in these encounters the borderlines are also frequently being blurred and crossed.
The study completes both on-going discussions of waterscape and the thematic discussions of borders. It argues that beside the border between land and water, there are other borders to be found. For, the waterscape structure is divided into interconnected above-water and underwater landscapes. The trolling practice’s tasks grosses this borderline between these two landscapes. Anglers operate below-water fishing activities from the above with the agency of technological materiality (e.g. sonar, lures). Even the fish may leap out of the water or they may end up as catch into the trolling boat.
In enactment of trolling practice, the borders between the bodies of the competition parties (the waterbody, fish, weather, and anglers) are broken. The activity is characterized by the associated human and non-human encounters and events of coming together. During the encounters, anglers can identify themselves with the watery waves and the water may also be pulled into becoming a man. The experienced angler has potential to sense the fish, as an individual, and connect this sensation to the fish’s species-specific attributes. The angler is, in a way, becoming an animal. The material body of weather has strong agency in fishing. The weather above the waterbody affects the sensory conditions. It can break the calm before the storm. Altogether, the heterogeneous and open‐ended grouping of elements of trolling competition parties situationally affect one another’s being through their practices. This conglomeration of these elements constitutes a certain kind of waterscape – a borderless water assemblage.