Anthropologists have often focused on what one can read about the worlds of hunters and prey from the forms of traps. This article demonstrates, however, that a trap’s design is not always tightly coupled to the worlds within which it is deployed. Using the case of Columbia River salmon traps, it shows how the social, economic and ecological roles of traps can dramatically change – even as their physical shape remains the same. In the late 19th century, these traps were lucrative for their owners, but unpopular with the region’s gillnet fishermen. The fishermen feared that traps entrapped the community in a problematic form of political economy – that they created the wrong kind of subjects and social order, concentrating wealth in the hands of a small, lazy owner class. The fishermen argued that such problems inhered in the materiality of the traps and that their physical design produced inequality that jeapordized the community. The gillnetters ultimately won over the government with their arguments, and fish traps were banned. But the banning of traps has subsequently proved entrapping. Today, some of the river’s salmon are listed as endangered species. Gillnets, which often kill fish before they are hauled in, do not allow fishermen to sort out endangered and unendangered fish; they are thus being phased out. Traps that keep fish alive in their holds would allow for sorting out and releasing endangered fish, and they are now heralded as an environmentally sustainable technology by conservationists. But after decades of arguments that traps embody and create unjust economic forms, it is logistically and socially difficult to bring back traps. Based on this example, this article proposes an approach to traps that gives special attention to how the material force of traps shifts as they are linked to different ecological contexts and practices of political economy.

中文翻译：

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诱捕器设计的陷阱：物质性，政治经济和固定渔具的变化世界

人类学家经常集中精力从陷阱的形式上了解猎人和猎物的世界。但是，本文证明，陷阱的设计并不总是与部署它的世界紧密耦合。以哥伦比亚河鲑鱼捕集器为例，它展示了捕集器的社会，经济和生态作用如何发生巨大变化，即使它们的物理形状保持不变。在19世纪后期，这些陷阱对其主人有利可图，但在该地区的刺网渔民中却不受欢迎。渔民担心陷阱会以一种有问题的政治经济形式困住社区-他们创造了错误的主题和社会秩序，将财富集中在一个懒惰的小业主阶级手中。渔民认为，此类问题是陷阱的实质所固有的，其物理设计产生了不平等现象，危及整个社区。刺网者最终以他们的论点赢得了政府的支持，并禁止使用诱捕器。但是，禁止诱捕措施后来被证明是诱人的。如今，河中的一些鲑鱼被列为濒危物种。刺网通常在将鱼拖入水中之前将其杀死，因此不允许渔民挑选濒临灭绝的鱼类；因此，它们正在逐步淘汰。使鱼类存活的诱捕器可以筛选并释放濒临灭绝的鱼类，现在，保护主义者将其誉为环境可持续技术。但是经过数十年的陷阱论证，他们创造并创造了不公正的经济形式，从逻辑上和社会上都很难带回陷阱。基于此示例，本文提出了一种陷阱的方法，该方法应特别注意陷阱的物质力如何变化，因为它们与不同的生态环境和政治经济实践相关联。