Toward an Optimum Yield: Science, Technology, and Fisheries Development in Lake Malawi, 1930–1964.

In the late colonial period, fisheries science and colonial development programs converged in blueprints to better exploit marine resources throughout the British empire. Yet, the historiography of science and colonial development has focused predominantly on the management and exploitation of terre...

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Publicado en:Isis: A Journal of the History of Science in Society Vol. 117; no. 1; pp. 3 - 27
Autores principales: Wilson, David, Gough, Milo, Nkhoma, Bryson, Chirwa, Elias, Knapp, Charles W., Morse, Tracy, Mulwafu, Wapulumuka
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: University of Chicago Press Mar2026
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Toward an Optimum Yield: Science, Technology, and Fisheries Development in Lake Malawi, 1930–1964.
      aug:
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          Wilson, David
          Gough, Milo
          Nkhoma, Bryson
          Chirwa, Elias
          Knapp, Charles W.
          Morse, Tracy
          Mulwafu, Wapulumuka
        affil:
          University of Strathclyde
          University of Oxford
          Mzuzu University
      su:
        Fishery sciences
        Resource management
        Legal doctrines
        Lakes
        Mathematical optimization
        Indigenous fishes
        Environmental history
        History of colonies
      sug:
        subj:
          Fishery sciences
          Resource management
          Legal doctrines
          Lakes
          Mathematical optimization
          Indigenous fishes
          Environmental history
          History of colonies
      ab: In the late colonial period, fisheries science and colonial development programs converged in blueprints to better exploit marine resources throughout the British empire. Yet, the historiography of science and colonial development has focused predominantly on the management and exploitation of terrestrial resources with only limited investigation of parallel schemes focused on marine and freshwater resources. Centering on the final decades of the British-ruled Nyasaland Protectorate, this article interrogates the role of science in shaping the regulations and development of Lake Malawi's fisheries. It argues that the late-colonial fusion of scientific optimization and legislative frameworks tethered government-led fisheries development programs to a vision of optimal resource extraction, governmental custodianship, and technical development that was entrenched in a faith in scientific management but without the necessary data to monitor changes in fishing efforts or the capacity to enforce fishing regulations. Consequently, scientists' recommendations helped to embed assumptions of custodianship and control over watery environments within legislative frameworks that were increasingly disconnected from the evolving commercial, environmental, and technological contexts shaping Indigenous-led and settler-owned fishing enterprises.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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