Sensing sounder: A Sonar-o-Graphy of the Subsurface Encounters within Sport Fishing

Sport fishing is a popular consumption-oriented leisure in the western world. Through practice theory (Schatzki, 2002, Reckwitz, 2002) and ethnographic approach (e.g., Valtonen et al., 2010), I argue that sport fishing is best understood as an assemblage of the elements – the waterbody, weather, fish, and anglers (Markuksela, 2021). Human agency is often subordinate to the non-human elements of this conglomeration. In fact, deeper investigation suggests a move from anthropomorphism to zoomorphism – animalizing the angler in the pursuit to sense like a fish (Markuksela, 2013). In sensing like a fish, the angler is, in a way, becoming an animal, not in terms of understand the fish’s inner experiences but in terms of the fish’s practical understanding (Markuksela & Valtonen, 2019).

Anglers endeavour to interconnect and familiarise with the fish occurs mostly without actual close ‘contact zones’ via ‘distant’ technologized observing. For instance, closely following the screen of “sounder”, the fishfinder sonar system. The subsurface observation of the post human fish, water, vegetation or the bottom is a messy implementation of sensory ethnography (Markuksela 2021) and multispecies ethnography (Ogden et al., 2013). I entitle this method to Sonar-o-Graphy. Similar to photovoice it offers a visual means for exploring embodied dimensions of human–animal entanglement. The “sounder” allows the ethnographer to “see” for instance inland water temperature and currents, not to mention the bodily rhythms, the micro-motions (Sheller, 2015) and the actions of fish. The senses act as the interface between the embodied selves and the environment, in this case the fish, the water and the angler. The ethnographer “senses” the whereabouts of the creature of water and reflects it aback into the researchers own body. Thus, the sounder along with water, provides a possibility to human-animal communication by and with sensory-rich body language. The aspiration is to create a sensorial connection and embodied understanding between the studied fish and the human. The sounder and angler have the ability to cocreate sensory wisdom and enlighten the secret world of the fish and also the rhizomatic human and non-human material subsurface encounters of sport fishing.