Aijie Shi

Experimenting with Aquatic Productivity: The Life History of Aquatic Science in Modern China (1910–1960)

My dissertation, “Experimenting with Aquatic Productivity: The Life History of Aquatic Science in Cold War China (1946-1960),” examines the evolution of aquatic science, a state-led initiative that utilizes interdisciplinary knowledge from biology, chemistry, hydrology, and engineering to transform aquatic ecosystems into productive and exploitable resources for the purpose of social rehabilitation, international trade, and socialist construction. Focusing on three model projects—shark liver oil production, kelp transplantation, and reservoir-fishery construction—my research analyzes the state’s scientific engagement with various aquatic ecosystems across the domains of fishing, mariculture, and freshwater aquaculture in the Cold War period.

Aijie Shi is a PhD candidate exploring the history of fisheries science in modern China. She is interested in tracing the delineation of time through celestial movements, environmental changes, and evolutionary processes, and their imprints on human society. With former training in the History of Astronomy, Aijie is turning her intellectual gaze from stars to the seas. Her current project looks into how fisheries scientists and shoreline communities fathomed and harnessed aquatic productivity in modern China. Aijie has always been fascinated yet bewildered by the passionate fever fueled up by nationalism and socialism, and their clashes with science. She hopes to be able to present it in the story that she is telling.