ESEH 2027 Panel Proposal
We invite proposals for a panel to be submitted to the ESEH conference at Salzburg, 7 — 10 September 2027
Deadline for Proposals: 20 September 2026
Fish out of place: how animals shape infrastructure
Hydraulic infrastructure, fishing vessels, hatcheries and fish ponds are usually studied as expressions of human ambition: to engineer environments and to manage fish populations. Less attention has been paid to the ways fish failed to behave as expected. They did not swim up fishways, did not spawn, avoided fishing gear, or simply failed to appear. As highly mobile animals, fish kept eluding the technical logic of engineers and fishers, of fisheries scientists, aquaculturists and water managers. Their movements limited what infrastructure could do, and prompted new efforts to adapt or redesign it. This panel explores the role of animals in infrastructural change through the lens of fish and other aquatic life. It brings together environmental history and the history of science and technology, and is open to European and non-European cases from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Please send a communication of interest along with a short abstract (200 words) to christian.zumbraegel@uni-bielefeld.de and anna.safronova@zmo.de by 20 September 2026, so that we can build a coherent panel together.
