“I'm not trying to save fish, I'm trying to save dinner”: Media, celebrity and sustainable seafood as a solution to environmental limits

This paper explores the circulation of images and words about fish that has been certified or endorsed as 'sustainable seafood'. Specifically, our discourse analysis - of data collected from online, magazine, and television media sources targeted at North Americans - interrogates the constitution of sustainable seafood as a tenable solution to fisheries limits. We reveal three narratives populated by different messages and personalities that describe spaces of fish harvest, crisis, and consumption. By exploring the multifaceted ways that prominent organization National Geographic mediates sustainable seafood, we also show that the narratives rest easily with each other, and when taken together, present what seems like a cohesive set of cultural instructions for viewers and readers. Throughout, we question what is not present in the narratives and highlight how sustainable seafood as a cultural phenomenon opens up new material and political-economic opportunities for some. In sum, we trace a cultural politics that constitutes sustainable seafood as a tenable solution to fisheries limits, obscures the complexities of industrial fisheries, and generates new opportunities for accumulation. Our analysis and discussion pushes research regarding the contemporary cultural politics of sustainability towards an array of media organizations and formats and encourages further consideration of intimate identity politics.