Knowing the aquatic other : unleashing Blackfish

This chapter builds on Brammer's observations of the Blackfish effect by examining it across a wider temporal and spatial sphere that connects the event in 2010 to a longer history of relations with people, before the captive whale was either possible or desirable. The chapter explores how both the otherness and likeness of the whale have been developed and mobilized to shape their relations with humans and how it is through an inclusive definition of collaboration that this can be accounted for. To collaborate with whales allows for their indiscipline and resistance, not least of which is an ultimate resistance to the more orderly worldview in which the 'true nature' of the whale can be revealed and appropriated to settle the conservation worth of public aquaria. The chapter argues that the other-worldliness of whales, including their natural incompatibility with land (its systems, logics and practices) as well as their great compatibility with human values (and the empathy this inspires) creates a dynamic, radical actor at the centre of some large, public aquaria.