Small-scale fisheries in Greenlandic planning -- the becoming of a governance problem

This article analyses an ongoing planning process in Greenlandic fisheries governance aiming to reform the coastal Greenland halibut fishery. It examines the way certain truths about this fishery and the need for reform are produced up to and in the final policy document ‘regulation concerning the coastal fishery for Greenland halibut’. Findings highlight the way the small-scale Greenland halibut fishery system becomes a particular governance problem with respect to particular contextual meanings of sustainability and long-term planning. The article then examines whether this governance problem could also be understood as primarily a problem to a certain ‘governmentality’ mode of governance. Whereas some fishery studies document how governmentality modes of governance in fisheries succeeds in transforming subjectivities, this study offers a view into the process that might go before successful governmentality: The process whereby a selected fishery becomes subjected to planned out-phasing through a combined construction of fleet and human identity.