Fynn Holm | University of Tübingen (original) (raw)
Published Papers by Fynn Holm
Environmental History, 2023
While the Japanese mountain valley Kamikōchi is today marketed as an alpine landscape that is bot... more While the Japanese mountain valley Kamikōchi is today marketed as an alpine landscape that is both "foreign" and "Japanese," the Alps-like aesthetics of the valley are the result of a series of anthropogenic alterations. The renaming of a non-European mountain range as "Alps" was a common practice among Western colonial powers, but in the case of the "Japanese Alps," to which Kamikōchi belongs, it was the Japanese themselves who took the Swiss Alps as a model landscape and strived to emulate European industrial and touristic mountain land-use patterns. Comparing the valley to the Swiss Alps then changed how stakeholders perceived the valley and its possible economic utilization for the emerging Japanese empire. "The Japan of picturesque romance is passing away and is being replaced by a land of materialism," lamented Yoshiyuki Kagami in The Japan Times & Mail in 1930. 1 Only far away from urban life, argued Kagami further, would natural beauty still live in Japan "in defiance of the ingressing machine era." The best place to experience the remnants of this beauty were, in his opinion, the vast mountain ranges in central Honshū popularly known as the Japanese Alps: "In the meadows adjacent to the upper waters of River Adzusa [sic] near Kamikōchi, the Japanese Zermatt, are flourishing cattle farms, such as those which are so familiar a sight in the Swiss Alps." 2 His effort to compare a Japanese
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, 2021
Japan is a hyper-aging society, and its government is encouraging robotic solutions to address el... more Japan is a hyper-aging society, and its government is encouraging robotic solutions to address elder care labor shortage. Therefore, authorities have adopted an agenda of introducing social robots. However, increasing numbers of people in Japan are becoming emotionally attached to anthropomorphic machines, and their introduction into elder care may thus be perceived as contentious. By exploring human engagement with social robots in the care context, this paper argues that rapid technological advances in the twenty-first century will see robots achieve some level of agency, contributing to human society by carving out unique roles for themselves and by bonding with humans. Nevertheless, the questions remain of whether there should be a difference between humans attributing agency to a being and those beings having the inherent ability to produce agency and how we might understand that difference if unable to access the minds of other humans, let alone nonhumans, some of which are not even alive in the classical sense. Using the example of an interaction between an elderly woman and a social robot, we engage with these questions; discuss linguistic, attributed, and inherent agencies; and suggest that a processual type of agency might be most appropriate for understanding human-robot interaction.
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, 2021
The Anthropocene Review, 2020
In this essay, we reevaluate the 2019 outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from the persp... more In this essay, we reevaluate the 2019 outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from the perspective of multispecies entanglements. It is argued that anthropogenic alterations in the biosphere will most likely accelerate the rate of multispecies pandemics in the Anthropocene. Using a textual analysis approach of anthropological and historical sources on the example of coronaviruses and live animal markets in China, we trace how the virosphere of wild animals from tropical regions comes into contact with the virosphere of humans and farmed animals in highly industrialized landscapes. We suggest that adopting a multispecies perspective on viruses can allow them to be understood as living processes that interact with other species in a realm called the virosphere. The rate at which novel infectious diseases are transmitted by bacteria and viruses has increased in recent decades. We argue that this is caused by side effects of the Anthropocene, such as deforestation, the surge in population growth and density, and anthropogenic climate change, which give rise to an increased number of unusual encounters between humans, nonhuman companion species, and wild animals. In this way, the virospheres of host organisms, which were formerly partly isolated, are allowed to converge and freely exchange infectious diseases, leading to a more homogenized virosphere. As anthropogenic alterations are set to continue in the future, we suggest that multispecies pandemics will likely increase in the following decades.
Journal of Global History, 2021
This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beg... more This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century. It shows that fishing communities around the world protested almost simultaneously against the introduction of Norwegian-style industrial whaling, even though the protesting fishermen did not compete for the same marine resources as the whalers. Analysing Norwegian and Japanese fishermen's knowledge reveals that whales played a crucial part in pre-industrial coastal fishing, as they were partly responsible for bringing fish closer to the shore. The article argues that fishing communities around the world had developed 'coeval moral ecologies', believing that the killing and flensing of whales caused environmental pollution, hurting coastal flora and fauna, and thus ultimately diminishing the coastal ecosystem on which the fishing communities depended. Fisheries scientists, politicians, and whalers have, however, downplayed this fishermen's knowledge by presenting allegedly unbiased scientific data that did not indicate a relationship between whaling and fishing.
Das ländliche Japan zwischen Idylle und Verfall, Diskurse um Regionalität, Natur und Nation, 2020
The tsunami following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed large parts of the village A... more The tsunami following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed large parts of the village Ayukawa which is known as one of only four remaining "whaling towns". The village had continued limited coastal whaling even after Japan had stopped commercial whaling in 1988. In this article, I argue that the remaining inhabitants have inextricably linked the reconstruction of Ayu kawa after the tsunami with the coastal whaling operation, despite its marginal economic status. The belief of a shared history of sustainable use of whales has helped to prevent the disintegration of the town and dominated the recon struction discourse. I argue that grassroots initiatives like the Whale Festival or the sale of whale meat by locals have forged a common identity and reinvented Ayukawa as a "whaling town". However, when critically examining the assertation of sustainable use of whales under the satoumi framework, the risk of relying on only one industry for the reconstruction becomes apparent. Possible problems like the dependency of the whaling industry on governmental subsidies, the health risk of eating raw whale meat and the sustainability of the whale stocks are downplayed. Furthermore, the recent announcement of the Japanese government to resume commercial whaling in 2019 has caused further concern about the town's future. Many locals fear that their limited coastal whaling operation cannot compete with larger fishing companies in other cities should they engage in large-scale commercial whaling.
Arcadia, 2020
Invoking its long history with whales, the port city Hachinohe plans to reintroduce commercial wh... more Invoking its long history with whales, the port city Hachinohe plans to reintroduce commercial whaling after Japan’s withdrawal from the
International Whaling Commission in 2019. However, a century earlier, in 1911, industrial whaling had caused widespread environmental
pollution in Hachinohe, leading to the largest Japanese anti-whaling protests and the destruction of the local whaling station. This troubled past challenges the official narrative of the current city government and also affects its decision making.
dung 3). Diese filtrierende Ernährungsweise geht einher mit einem eher gemächlichen Schwimmen, ei... more dung 3). Diese filtrierende Ernährungsweise geht einher mit einem eher gemächlichen Schwimmen, einem Durchpflügen der Meere. Die Zahnwale hingegen sind Jäger und die homodonten (gleichartigen) Zähne dienen dem Festhalten der Beute.
Japan 2019: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, 2019
This article analyses the historical and political background that led to the Japanese withdrawal... more This article analyses the historical and political background that led to the Japanese withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in June 2019. It is argued that Japan originally joined the IWC after the Second World War in order to enhance its standing with the international community. Japan remained in the IWC after the commercial whaling moratorium in 1986 with the intention of revoking the moratorium. However, the defeat before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2014 confirmed to the Japanese government that the moratorium would not be lifted. Ultimately, the Japanese government decided to leave the IWC before the 2020 American presidential election, as it was believed that the Trump administration would not sanction Japan for leaving an international organisation. The IWC withdrawal also allowed the Japanese government to withdraw from the financially disastrous practice of Antarctic whaling without giving the impression of having bowed to pressure from international NGOs. Domestically, the ongoing protests of international NGOs against Japanese whaling and dolphin hunts have led to an increased interest in a national whaling culture and an anti-anti-whaling attitude among many Japanese citizens.
Disclaimer: This pre-print is an unpublished English translation of the article ‘Japan’s Walfangpolitik: Die Gründe für den Austritt aus der Internationalen Walfangkommission’. Please cite only from the German original.
The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 2019
In December 2018, the Japanese government announced that it was withdrawing from the Internationa... more In December 2018, the Japanese government announced that it was withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission and would resume commercial whaling in July 2019. This paper revisits four coastal communities that still conduct coastal whaling to see how these communities have developed during the whaling moratorium and what prospects and challenges they face when commercial whaling is resumed.
https://apjjf.org/2019/04/Holm.html
Thesis Chapters by Fynn Holm
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Zurich, 2020
Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. This study argues, however, t... more Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. This study argues, however, that many coastal communities in Northeast Japan did not engage in active whale hunting until the end of the Meiji period (1868–1912) as the local fishermen believed that whales were the incarnation of the gods of the seas, who would bring fish towards the shore. These communities profited from the presence of whales and feared the environmental pollution whaling caused to the coast. They fought against Western Japanese whalers who tried to introduce whaling in their region.
The concept of the “cetosphere” is used as a theoretical framework to argue that in many coastal ecosystems before 1900, whales rather than humans were the primary keystone species.
Chapter 1 introduces early modern maritime Japan through the eyes of whalers from Kii Domain in Western Japan. The chapter reconstructs how traveling Kii fishermen left their communities in the seventeenth century and disseminated techniques for proto-industrial fish fertilizer production and whaling across the Japanese archipelago. Chapter 2 shows how the whaling activities of the Kii fishermen were challenged in Northeast Japan, where the locals wrote a petition in 1677 to stop all whaling operations. By analyzing the content of this petition, how the locals perceived the ecological and socio-economic role of whales in the local ecosystem can be reconstructed. Chapter 3 expands on this discussion by focusing on the cultural aspects of whale strandings in Northeast Japan and argues that whales behaved differently across regions during their migration along the Japanese Coast, contributing to a whaling culture in Western Japan and a non-whaling culture in Northeast Japan.
Chapter 4 shows how whaling knowledge was distributed among coastal communities after the end of the Kii Expansion. Climatic and socio-economic changes played a pivotal role in the attempts to introduce proto-industrial whaling in Northeast Japan in the early nineteenth century. The same changes were also responsible for its failure, however. Chapter 5 then discusses the rise of Ayukawa as the first “whaling town” in Northeast Japan. It is argued that the migration of workers and the focus on whale fertilizer were the primary reasons for the eventual success of industrial whaling.
Finally, Chapter 6 analyses the Hachinohe uprising of 1911, when over 1,000 fishermen destroyed the local whaling station operated by whalers from Western Japan. This chapter shows how the different vernacular perspectives on whales and whaling were negotiated and deconstructed in the months leading up to the raid.
Drafts by Fynn Holm
Papers by Fynn Holm
Journal of Global History
This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beg... more This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century. It shows that fishing communities around the world protested almost simultaneously against the introduction of Norwegian-style industrial whaling, even though the protesting fishermen did not compete for the same marine resources as the whalers. Analysing Norwegian and Japanese fishermen’s knowledge reveals that whales played a crucial part in pre-industrial coastal fishing, as they were partly responsible for bringing fish closer to the shore. The article argues that fishing communities around the world had developed ‘coeval moral ecologies’, believing that the killing and flensing of whales caused environmental pollution, hurting coastal flora and fauna, and thus ultimately diminishing the coastal ecosystem on which the fishing communities depended. Fisheries scientists, politicians, and whalers have, however, downplayed this fishermen’s knowledge by pr...
Books by Fynn Holm
Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In this innovative new study,... more Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In this innovative new study, Fynn Holm argues that for centuries some regions in early modern Japan did not engage in whaling. In fact, they were actively opposed to it, even resorting to violence when whales were killed. Resistance against whaling was widespread especially in the Northeast among the Japanese fishermen who worshiped whales as the incarnation of Ebisu, the god of the sea. Holm argues that human interactions with whales were much more diverse than the basic hunter-prey relationship, as cetaceans played a pivotal role in proto-industrial fisheries. The advent of industrial whaling in the early twentieth century, however, destroyed this centuries-long equilibrium between humans and whales. In its place, communities in Northeast Japan invented a new whaling tradition, which has almost completely eclipsed older forms of human-whale interactions. This title is also available as Open Access.
Environmental History, 2023
While the Japanese mountain valley Kamikōchi is today marketed as an alpine landscape that is bot... more While the Japanese mountain valley Kamikōchi is today marketed as an alpine landscape that is both "foreign" and "Japanese," the Alps-like aesthetics of the valley are the result of a series of anthropogenic alterations. The renaming of a non-European mountain range as "Alps" was a common practice among Western colonial powers, but in the case of the "Japanese Alps," to which Kamikōchi belongs, it was the Japanese themselves who took the Swiss Alps as a model landscape and strived to emulate European industrial and touristic mountain land-use patterns. Comparing the valley to the Swiss Alps then changed how stakeholders perceived the valley and its possible economic utilization for the emerging Japanese empire. "The Japan of picturesque romance is passing away and is being replaced by a land of materialism," lamented Yoshiyuki Kagami in The Japan Times & Mail in 1930. 1 Only far away from urban life, argued Kagami further, would natural beauty still live in Japan "in defiance of the ingressing machine era." The best place to experience the remnants of this beauty were, in his opinion, the vast mountain ranges in central Honshū popularly known as the Japanese Alps: "In the meadows adjacent to the upper waters of River Adzusa [sic] near Kamikōchi, the Japanese Zermatt, are flourishing cattle farms, such as those which are so familiar a sight in the Swiss Alps." 2 His effort to compare a Japanese
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, 2021
Japan is a hyper-aging society, and its government is encouraging robotic solutions to address el... more Japan is a hyper-aging society, and its government is encouraging robotic solutions to address elder care labor shortage. Therefore, authorities have adopted an agenda of introducing social robots. However, increasing numbers of people in Japan are becoming emotionally attached to anthropomorphic machines, and their introduction into elder care may thus be perceived as contentious. By exploring human engagement with social robots in the care context, this paper argues that rapid technological advances in the twenty-first century will see robots achieve some level of agency, contributing to human society by carving out unique roles for themselves and by bonding with humans. Nevertheless, the questions remain of whether there should be a difference between humans attributing agency to a being and those beings having the inherent ability to produce agency and how we might understand that difference if unable to access the minds of other humans, let alone nonhumans, some of which are not even alive in the classical sense. Using the example of an interaction between an elderly woman and a social robot, we engage with these questions; discuss linguistic, attributed, and inherent agencies; and suggest that a processual type of agency might be most appropriate for understanding human-robot interaction.
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, 2021
The Anthropocene Review, 2020
In this essay, we reevaluate the 2019 outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from the persp... more In this essay, we reevaluate the 2019 outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from the perspective of multispecies entanglements. It is argued that anthropogenic alterations in the biosphere will most likely accelerate the rate of multispecies pandemics in the Anthropocene. Using a textual analysis approach of anthropological and historical sources on the example of coronaviruses and live animal markets in China, we trace how the virosphere of wild animals from tropical regions comes into contact with the virosphere of humans and farmed animals in highly industrialized landscapes. We suggest that adopting a multispecies perspective on viruses can allow them to be understood as living processes that interact with other species in a realm called the virosphere. The rate at which novel infectious diseases are transmitted by bacteria and viruses has increased in recent decades. We argue that this is caused by side effects of the Anthropocene, such as deforestation, the surge in population growth and density, and anthropogenic climate change, which give rise to an increased number of unusual encounters between humans, nonhuman companion species, and wild animals. In this way, the virospheres of host organisms, which were formerly partly isolated, are allowed to converge and freely exchange infectious diseases, leading to a more homogenized virosphere. As anthropogenic alterations are set to continue in the future, we suggest that multispecies pandemics will likely increase in the following decades.
Journal of Global History, 2021
This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beg... more This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century. It shows that fishing communities around the world protested almost simultaneously against the introduction of Norwegian-style industrial whaling, even though the protesting fishermen did not compete for the same marine resources as the whalers. Analysing Norwegian and Japanese fishermen's knowledge reveals that whales played a crucial part in pre-industrial coastal fishing, as they were partly responsible for bringing fish closer to the shore. The article argues that fishing communities around the world had developed 'coeval moral ecologies', believing that the killing and flensing of whales caused environmental pollution, hurting coastal flora and fauna, and thus ultimately diminishing the coastal ecosystem on which the fishing communities depended. Fisheries scientists, politicians, and whalers have, however, downplayed this fishermen's knowledge by presenting allegedly unbiased scientific data that did not indicate a relationship between whaling and fishing.
Das ländliche Japan zwischen Idylle und Verfall, Diskurse um Regionalität, Natur und Nation, 2020
The tsunami following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed large parts of the village A... more The tsunami following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed large parts of the village Ayukawa which is known as one of only four remaining "whaling towns". The village had continued limited coastal whaling even after Japan had stopped commercial whaling in 1988. In this article, I argue that the remaining inhabitants have inextricably linked the reconstruction of Ayu kawa after the tsunami with the coastal whaling operation, despite its marginal economic status. The belief of a shared history of sustainable use of whales has helped to prevent the disintegration of the town and dominated the recon struction discourse. I argue that grassroots initiatives like the Whale Festival or the sale of whale meat by locals have forged a common identity and reinvented Ayukawa as a "whaling town". However, when critically examining the assertation of sustainable use of whales under the satoumi framework, the risk of relying on only one industry for the reconstruction becomes apparent. Possible problems like the dependency of the whaling industry on governmental subsidies, the health risk of eating raw whale meat and the sustainability of the whale stocks are downplayed. Furthermore, the recent announcement of the Japanese government to resume commercial whaling in 2019 has caused further concern about the town's future. Many locals fear that their limited coastal whaling operation cannot compete with larger fishing companies in other cities should they engage in large-scale commercial whaling.
Arcadia, 2020
Invoking its long history with whales, the port city Hachinohe plans to reintroduce commercial wh... more Invoking its long history with whales, the port city Hachinohe plans to reintroduce commercial whaling after Japan’s withdrawal from the
International Whaling Commission in 2019. However, a century earlier, in 1911, industrial whaling had caused widespread environmental
pollution in Hachinohe, leading to the largest Japanese anti-whaling protests and the destruction of the local whaling station. This troubled past challenges the official narrative of the current city government and also affects its decision making.
dung 3). Diese filtrierende Ernährungsweise geht einher mit einem eher gemächlichen Schwimmen, ei... more dung 3). Diese filtrierende Ernährungsweise geht einher mit einem eher gemächlichen Schwimmen, einem Durchpflügen der Meere. Die Zahnwale hingegen sind Jäger und die homodonten (gleichartigen) Zähne dienen dem Festhalten der Beute.
Japan 2019: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, 2019
This article analyses the historical and political background that led to the Japanese withdrawal... more This article analyses the historical and political background that led to the Japanese withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in June 2019. It is argued that Japan originally joined the IWC after the Second World War in order to enhance its standing with the international community. Japan remained in the IWC after the commercial whaling moratorium in 1986 with the intention of revoking the moratorium. However, the defeat before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2014 confirmed to the Japanese government that the moratorium would not be lifted. Ultimately, the Japanese government decided to leave the IWC before the 2020 American presidential election, as it was believed that the Trump administration would not sanction Japan for leaving an international organisation. The IWC withdrawal also allowed the Japanese government to withdraw from the financially disastrous practice of Antarctic whaling without giving the impression of having bowed to pressure from international NGOs. Domestically, the ongoing protests of international NGOs against Japanese whaling and dolphin hunts have led to an increased interest in a national whaling culture and an anti-anti-whaling attitude among many Japanese citizens.
Disclaimer: This pre-print is an unpublished English translation of the article ‘Japan’s Walfangpolitik: Die Gründe für den Austritt aus der Internationalen Walfangkommission’. Please cite only from the German original.
The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 2019
In December 2018, the Japanese government announced that it was withdrawing from the Internationa... more In December 2018, the Japanese government announced that it was withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission and would resume commercial whaling in July 2019. This paper revisits four coastal communities that still conduct coastal whaling to see how these communities have developed during the whaling moratorium and what prospects and challenges they face when commercial whaling is resumed.
https://apjjf.org/2019/04/Holm.html
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Zurich, 2020
Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. This study argues, however, t... more Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. This study argues, however, that many coastal communities in Northeast Japan did not engage in active whale hunting until the end of the Meiji period (1868–1912) as the local fishermen believed that whales were the incarnation of the gods of the seas, who would bring fish towards the shore. These communities profited from the presence of whales and feared the environmental pollution whaling caused to the coast. They fought against Western Japanese whalers who tried to introduce whaling in their region.
The concept of the “cetosphere” is used as a theoretical framework to argue that in many coastal ecosystems before 1900, whales rather than humans were the primary keystone species.
Chapter 1 introduces early modern maritime Japan through the eyes of whalers from Kii Domain in Western Japan. The chapter reconstructs how traveling Kii fishermen left their communities in the seventeenth century and disseminated techniques for proto-industrial fish fertilizer production and whaling across the Japanese archipelago. Chapter 2 shows how the whaling activities of the Kii fishermen were challenged in Northeast Japan, where the locals wrote a petition in 1677 to stop all whaling operations. By analyzing the content of this petition, how the locals perceived the ecological and socio-economic role of whales in the local ecosystem can be reconstructed. Chapter 3 expands on this discussion by focusing on the cultural aspects of whale strandings in Northeast Japan and argues that whales behaved differently across regions during their migration along the Japanese Coast, contributing to a whaling culture in Western Japan and a non-whaling culture in Northeast Japan.
Chapter 4 shows how whaling knowledge was distributed among coastal communities after the end of the Kii Expansion. Climatic and socio-economic changes played a pivotal role in the attempts to introduce proto-industrial whaling in Northeast Japan in the early nineteenth century. The same changes were also responsible for its failure, however. Chapter 5 then discusses the rise of Ayukawa as the first “whaling town” in Northeast Japan. It is argued that the migration of workers and the focus on whale fertilizer were the primary reasons for the eventual success of industrial whaling.
Finally, Chapter 6 analyses the Hachinohe uprising of 1911, when over 1,000 fishermen destroyed the local whaling station operated by whalers from Western Japan. This chapter shows how the different vernacular perspectives on whales and whaling were negotiated and deconstructed in the months leading up to the raid.
Journal of Global History
This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beg... more This article discusses the largely forgotten anti-whaling protests in Norway and Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century. It shows that fishing communities around the world protested almost simultaneously against the introduction of Norwegian-style industrial whaling, even though the protesting fishermen did not compete for the same marine resources as the whalers. Analysing Norwegian and Japanese fishermen’s knowledge reveals that whales played a crucial part in pre-industrial coastal fishing, as they were partly responsible for bringing fish closer to the shore. The article argues that fishing communities around the world had developed ‘coeval moral ecologies’, believing that the killing and flensing of whales caused environmental pollution, hurting coastal flora and fauna, and thus ultimately diminishing the coastal ecosystem on which the fishing communities depended. Fisheries scientists, politicians, and whalers have, however, downplayed this fishermen’s knowledge by pr...
Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In this innovative new study,... more Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In this innovative new study, Fynn Holm argues that for centuries some regions in early modern Japan did not engage in whaling. In fact, they were actively opposed to it, even resorting to violence when whales were killed. Resistance against whaling was widespread especially in the Northeast among the Japanese fishermen who worshiped whales as the incarnation of Ebisu, the god of the sea. Holm argues that human interactions with whales were much more diverse than the basic hunter-prey relationship, as cetaceans played a pivotal role in proto-industrial fisheries. The advent of industrial whaling in the early twentieth century, however, destroyed this centuries-long equilibrium between humans and whales. In its place, communities in Northeast Japan invented a new whaling tradition, which has almost completely eclipsed older forms of human-whale interactions. This title is also available as Open Access.