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Background

The efforts to transform farmed salmon into a commodity sought to address a range of challenges, from diversifying caloric intake to preventing overfishing, ultimately creating new problems that lie at the core of the Anthropocene. A central question concerns the role of the concept of “sustainability” in this process, and the practices associated with it. 

So-called sustainable practices often contribute to environmental degradation; local and Indigenous populations contest problematic business practices; and farmed salmon themselves emerge as central subjects of industrial production. Exposed to high-density farming, technological manipulation, and disease management regimes, they become objects of continuous large-scale experimentation, bearing also the physiological and ecological costs of optimisation. 

Main research question

DARKLAX's main research question is threefold: 

1. What transformations are associated with the growth of the salmon farming industry in Chile since the 1970s? 
2. How do these transformations reshape our understanding of sustainability and the relationship between human and more-than-human nature?  
3. What role has Norway played in shaping this transnational development? 

In pursuing this question, DARKLAX develops the first socio-environmental history of Chilean salmon farming from an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. It tests a bold hypothesis: that the trajectory of salmon farming reveals three defining characteristics of the Anthropocene era: 

• The breakdown of assumed boundaries between technology and nature. 
• The instability and political function of the concept of sustainability. 
• The global consequences of localised biocommodification. 

Research approach

DARKLAX is a historical project built on interdisciplinary collaboration across the humanities and natural sciences.  

It integrates marine biology to understand salmon life inside and outside industrial farming systems, with particular attention to how salmon bodies register the effects of industrial production and function as key sites of biological and technological intervention. It also draws on anthropology to analyse lived experience and social conflict, and on historical analysis to trace long-term structural transformations. From a historical perspective, both the salmon itself—its present-day body—and the development of salmon farming make visible fundamental global transformations of the past half century. These perspectives are complemented by storytelling and visual methods that translate complex processes into accessible formats beyond traditional academic settings.  

Salmon farming is treated as an inherently transnational phenomenon. Its development not only connects Norwegian technology and capital, but Brazilian soy production, Japanese consumption patterns, Argentine environmental conditions, and global financial systems. These connections define the industry as a global system rather than a localised economic activity. 

As a field of study, salmon farming is not a niche case. Aquaculture is today one of the fastest-growing sectors of global food production – valued at hundreds of billions of dollars and supporting tens of millions of jobs worldwide. Farmed fish now provides a significant share of global protein consumption, and continued expansion is expected, intensifying existing environmental and social pressures. 

At the center of these transformations is Norway – the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon and the primary investor in Chilean expansion. DARKLAX examines how Norway’s role has evolved through this process and how its international expansion reflects broader shifts in global resource extraction, capital flows, and economic power. By tracing these dynamics, the project reveals how national development models become embedded in transnational ecological and political systems. 

Project organisation

The project develops through coordinated research activities, archival work, field research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public engagement. 

Key activities include: 

• Ongoing archival research in both Norway and Chile. 
• Fieldwork and interviews with industry actors and local communities. 
• Academic conference participation. 
• Preparation of peer-reviewed publications. 
• Development of documentary and visual outputs. 

Why DARKLAX matters?

Salmon farming is often framed as a model of sustainable innovation, a “Blue Revolution” promising economic growth, abundant protein, and technological progress. Yet this narrative obscures deeper tensions. DARKLAX investigates not just what salmon farming is, but what it reveals about our world: the intersections of industrial technology, market logic, environmental change, and human–more-than-human relationships. It also foregrounds the salmon itself as a central figure in this history, a living organism subjected to intensive control and experimentation, whose condition exposes the hidden costs of industrial “sustainability.” 

By tracing salmon farming historically, from its emergence in the 1970s to the present, the project illuminates broader patterns in how societies govern natural systems, justify growth, and respond to crisis. In doing so, it engages with urgent questions about sustainability, extractive capitalism, global inequality, and ecological futures. DARKLAX matters not only for understanding salmon farming itself, but for thinking critically about how sustainability is imagined, enacted, and contested in the Anthropocene. 

What we aim to achieve

DARKLAX’s research advances in three key directions: 

1. Build the first socio-environmental and transnational history of Chilean salmon farming that integrates environmental, economic, and social change. 
2. Examine the structural crises and transformations—including disease outbreaks, ecological disruption, and industrial reorganisation—that have shaped the industry’s trajectories. 
3. Reframe sustainability and human–nature relations by exploring how scientific, technological, and economic systems produce particular imaginaries of progress and resilience. 

Rather than viewing crises as discrete events, we understand them as ongoing processes that reveal how industrial systems adapt, survive, and reproduce. By doing so, DARKLAX contributes to a broader understanding of how human societies manage—and sometimes mismanage—complex ecological systems. 

Dissemination and engagement

DARKLAX treats dissemination as an integral part of research rather than a secondary activity. The project is designed to circulate beyond academic spaces through multiple formats and platforms—including public writing, documentary film, visual materials, teaching resources, and digital communication. By engaging diverse audiences, we aim to generate dialogue and reflection around the history and future of sustainability, industrial development, and environmental transformation. 

• Academic Communities: 
  The project contributes to debates in environmental history, Latin American studies, political ecology, science and technology studies, global commodity studies, and the emerging field of multispecies histories of capitalism. By approaching salmon farming as a transnational socioecological system, DARKLAX offers new perspectives on how global industries are formed, legitimised, and transformed over time.
• Policy and Civil Society: 
  By historicising sustainability and industrial governance, the project provides insights relevant to policymakers, environmental organisations, public institutions, and community actors engaged in discussions about coastal development, resource management, and ecological risk. 
• General Public: 
  Through documentary storytelling, public writing, and accessible visual formats, we translate research findings into narratives that resonate beyond academia. The goal is to make complex transformations understandable and relevant to broader audiences interested in climate change, animal welfare, social justice, and environmental futures. 
• Educational Contexts: 
  Our materials—including visual essays, films, and research-based resources—are designed to support teaching and learning across educational levels, from undergraduate and graduate courses to potentially secondary education settings. 

Partners