Location: Bergen, Vestland, Norway
Credit: Mimi E. Lam
Initiative: Bergen Summer Research School Ocean Expectations 2026 (Bergen Summer Research School Global Challenges)
Project: Diverse Ways of Sensing, Knowing and Valuing the Ocean transdisciplinary course
Story: On Day 2 of my new transdisciplinary research course, “Diverse Ways of Sensing, Knowing, and Valuing the Ocean,” designed based on research from my Managing Ethical Norwegian Seascape Activities (MENSA) project for the Bergen Summer Research School on “Ocean Expectations” (1 – 11 June 2026), 15 PhD students from multiple disciplines and countries played a Fishing Game. This image shows a group of them after they had played the game, in which they each selected a stakeholder role to play with different values and goals to win the game. I designed the Fishing Game to illustrate diverse values of stakeholders along the seafood value chain, in this case, with roles (e.g., indigenous, recreational, and commercial fishers; processors; consumers; and a conservationist) and rules (e.g., indigenous fisher fishes first for Food, Social and Ceremonial purposes) reflecting the Pacific salmon fishery in British Columbia, Canada. Two groups of seven and eight students played three rounds of the Fishing Game under different property regimes: 1. Open access, with no management rules; 2. Regulated access, with license fees; and 3. Ethical governance, where fishers must pay both license and extraction fees for the privilege to fish. After learning about each other through their stakeholders´ values, and negotiating both market and non-market exchanges, students in both groups discovered that more of them could win if they collaborated to achieve their goals, as well as have more fish in the pool! The game engaged these early-career researchers in a fun, but meaningful role-playing activity and built valuable relationships, setting the stage for our new transdisciplinary research, teaching, learning, and caring community as a way of being your true self, together with others. They also learned valuable transdisciplinary methodologies to incorporate into their own research projects with real stakeholders as they address diverse global challenges.