Moral Migrations: Making Sense of Seasonal Movement across the Human–Animal Divide

This paper explores early modern Spanish perceptions of human and non-human mobilities in the context of Spain’s expanding sixteenth-century oceanic ambitions. I consider how gendered early modern perceptions of itinerant movement intersected with the environmental and oceanic imagination by looking at coastal site of temporary human and animal migration, specifically the southwestern coast of Iberia, where migrating bluefin tuna encountered (and still encounter today) itinerant fisherman and associated laborers who flocked to the coast each spring for the seasonal tuna harvest, or almadraba.

In my consideration of this littoral site of human-animal entanglement, I am motivated by an interest in how people thought about the meaning of temporary (uncoerced) movement in a moment of rapidly intensifying global exchange and upheaval. My research thus far suggests that they often looked across the species line for insights into the long-term significance of these migrations for social and biological reproduction, just as they looked across the species line to explore changing ideas about sex, race, and class. The field of human and animal studies has so far had less to say about the realm of fish than other creatures, likely a reflection of greater interest in “companion species” as well as a conservationist emphasis on charismatic megafauna. The history of the early modern Spanish tuna harvest suggests that more attention to maritime creatures is warranted.