Francesca Kathleen Conterno

FRANCESCA CONTERNO, then a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, was approved funding in October 2024 to aid research “Pacific Futures: Refashioning Fish from Peru to Indonesia,” supervised by Dr. Jatin Dua. This research looks at the short life-cycle of a little-known commodity, which nonetheless serves as an essential component of our global food system. Fishmeal is a key marine ingredient in the larger world of intermediary food commodities — those organic substances which allow for the spatial and material re-combination of our Earth. Fishmeal in particular is used in animal feed formulations (largely in aquaculture) and occasionally as fertilizer. Working along the coast of Peru, where the bulk of the world supply in fishmeal is processed from the humble anchovy, the grantee boarded industrial fishing vessels; visited fishmeal processing plants; followed anchovy resource paths from docks through city markets; and tracked resource supply and price-swings across several fishing seasons. Through a focus on the politics of use of the upwelling-rich Humboldt current as oceanic resource; as well as an exploration of its distribution at local, regional, and global scales, This research shows how movements centered around eating local or national meet our thoroughly transnational food system; and what happens when organic matter changes form and place in a bid to multiply and transfigure food supplies.