Frustrating Sustainable Fisheries: The QMS and Sustainable Fisheries as Imaginary in New Zealand

Research PaperThis paper contends that stakeholders represent New Zealand fisheries through a sustainable fisheries imaginary. Stakeholders use the imaginary to legitimise sustainable utilisation. The imaginary is built using a series of calculative practices that constitute a measurement system (or metrology), that shape regimes of control. This imaginary is made manifest through three interrelated means: theory, rhetoric and practice. We contend that key stakeholders - specifically industry actors, ministerial policy makers and fisheries scientists - use the imaginary to promote, either deliberately or unwittingly, growth strategies that temper alternative interpretations of the state of New Zealand fisheries. We conclude that ongoing issues and recent events within New Zealand fisheries raise questions about the way this imaginary moulds understandings of sustainable fisheries to meet the expectations of those in control