Making anglers count: the rhetoric of quantification in English angling policy

1. Making anglers count: the rhetoric of quantification in English angling policy Chris Bear Geoff Whitman

2. (Angling Times, December 2006)

3. Outline of talk • Background and methodology • Theoretical approaches • Competing quantifications of anglers • Defining angling- inclusions, exclusions and context • Enacting angling • Conclusions

4. AIRE project outline WP 2.1 Environmental visions WP 2.5 Institutional environment WP 2.3 Angling and river processes Stakeholder input WP 2.4 Angling in the consumption economy Integrated rural development WP 2.2 Biodiversity and fish ecology

5. Methodology • Focus is the institutional context of angling • Semi-structured interviews with employees of institutions, such as EA, NFA, S&TA, NAFAC etc • 10 days of observant participation with EA and NFA • Policy documents, press releases, organisational literature

6. Theoretical background • Numbers, ‘truth claims’ and evidence-based policy making Numbers, ‘truth claims’ and evidence-based policy making • Enumerology and ethnostatistics • Rhetoric • Ontological politics

7. Numbers, ‘truth claims’ and evidence-based policy making • Numbers traverse knowledges, they create realities, are used to make ‘truth claims’ [Foucault, 1982] and have become ubiquitous within ‘evidence-based’ policy making and its emphasis on rational choices [Sanderson, 2002]. • Studies of quantification have examined the ways in which numbers: • produce ‘worlds to be organised, controlled, manipulated, studied, and known’ (Barnes and Hannah, 2001: 379). • allow individuals (whether humans or otherwise) to be combined into new categories which allow phenomena to be ‘more easily…acted upon’ (Abram et al, 1998).

8. Enumerology and ethnostatistics • Ethnostatistics: • “the empirical study of the professional creation, use, and interpretation of statistics and numerals in scholarly research” [Gephart, 2006, p.417]. • In contrast to more formal statistics, with its emphasis on codified rules, ethnostatistics argues that such knowledges are incomplete and that such users: • “…necessarily rely on ad hoc knowledge, rules of thumb, and other aspects of actual situations and contexts to produce, compose and understand the meaning of statistics” [Gephart, 2006, p. 418] • Ethnostatistics works at three levels but level 3 is most relevant to us. This: • “…uses literary and textual-analysis methodologies to understand how statistics are used in texts and documents to make persuasive claims about organizational realities” [2006, p. 419. Emphasis added]

9. Rhetoric • Classical sense of rhetoric: the ‘art of persuasion’ through verbal, written or visual means. • Rhetoric also involves taking a critical look at social science [but also natural science] methodologies and the frames that such methodologies both use and produce. • Rhetoric can be seen as a ‘moving force’ that is constantly drawing people into arguments while simultaneously pushing others away [Carrithers, 2005, p. 578]. • Can ‘push’ or ‘pull’ through language of convincing, persuading, dissuading, encouraging and discouraging of people • Others have argued that rhetoric involves a ‘performance’ [Fernandez 1986] or a measure of ‘self persuasion’ which then forms the basis of persuading others [Billig, 1996; Nienkamp, 2001].

10. Ontological politics • Law and Urry (2004) put forward two main points of interest/use to us: • They argue that social enquiry and its methods are productive - they help to make social worlds (i.e. they enact the social world) and realities rather than simply describing a single world in different ways. • Following from this if social methods are productive then they can be active in choosing to some extent the social worlds they want to make - that is they are political. • Mol (1999): • “…reality is historically, culturally and materially located” [1999, p. 75] and consequently there are multiple possible realities that can be shaped or enacted depending on the choices we make concerning our practices.

11. The major players in the numbers game • Environment Agency- statutory responsibilities for river management, development of angling and the sale of rod licenses • Sport England- a government agency that is designed to ‘sustain and increase participation in community sport’ [Sport England, 2007]

12. Contested Counts • Variety of figures produced by organisations about the number of anglers • Source of controversy because of the vast differences • Environment Agency (Fishing for the Future, 2006): • ‘Our figures show that more than 4 million people, over 12 years old, in England and Wales went angling last year’ [p.5] • Environment Agency (rod licence sales, 2006-2007) • 1,281,537 licences sold • Sport England (Active People survey, 2006) • 281,083 (number of adults fishing at least once a month)

13. Numbers as facts • Unproblematic portrayal of figures as single, factual realities: • “The questionnaire was designed with an expert Advisory Group of leading academics. It was fully piloted and tested for reliability.” (Sport England, 2006) • Rod licence sale numbers “are not estimates, they are money in the bank” (Environment Agency representative, Angling Times, 2006) • ‘Our figures show that more than 4 million people, over 12 years old, in England and Wales went angling last year’ (Environment Agency, Fishing for the Future: Angling in 2015, 2006)

14. Contesting ‘facts’ • However, concerns over discrepancies • On Sport England’s figures: • “If these figures weren’t so pathetically wrong, and with serious ramifications for angling, they would be laughable” (Keith Arthur, Angling Times, 2006) • “It is very worrying that Sport England’s figures for fishing are so off target. In 2005, the EA sold 1.25 million rod licenses for freshwater fishing- these are not estimates, they are money in the bank” (Environment Agency representative, Angling Times, 2006)

15. Contesting ‘facts’ • On Environment Agency figures: • “…the EA tells us how many people buy licences - there are last year 1.2 million or whatever. They also tell us there’s 4 million anglers… Who are they trying to kid? Government? You know it’s a lot of smoke.” (Angling Governing Body representative, interview, 2007) • “People look at these data and misinterpret the data there and what it means… They tend to do a survey and multiply up basically…when you go to national they’re looking to spin the data, dare I say- they just pick on the good news and ignore a lot of the factors which are there in the background [EA representative interview, 2006]

16. Defining Anglers • Contestation not just about the numbers themselves • Not just about counting, but about what, or who, counts • Three definitions of an angler: • Someone who buys an EA licence (EA rod licence sales figures) • Someone who has been fishing at least once in the past year (EA Public Attitudes to Angling survey) • Someone who has been fishing at least once in the past month (Sport England Active People survey) • However, all of these definitions are problematic because of the methodologies used to construct who counts. • Methods, counts and who is counted are all contested • Different methodologies used to produce different counts • All employ inclusions and exclusions

17. Problems with counting anglers • “It perhaps shows the need to be cautious with surveys. Sport England did a telephone survey…and based on that they worked out that there’s something like 297,000 [anglers], which is surprising when we sell 1.2 million rod licences. So we know as an absolute minimum there’s 1.2 million anglers. And the surveys we’ve done suggest much higher figures than certainly Sport England gave…So Sport England’s got it totally wrong” [EA representative interview] • “The Environment Agency said ‘we’ve got the right figures because we know how many licences are sold’. First of all…a sizeable minority of people buy two licences, because a licence covers you to use two rods. Quite a lot of people… must have two licences because they’re fishing for carp particularly and they use three rods so they need two licences, but those count as two people because they’ve got two licences” [Angling governing body representative interview]

18. Who counts- Inclusions and exclusion • Who doesn’t count as an angler? • Children (EA figures only count those aged 12 and over, while Sport England counts only those aged 16+) • Sea anglers (not included in the EA licence figures) • Those who have not bought licences but have fished (not included in the EA licence figures) • Virtual anglers? • EA licence data can include individuals who: • Use more than one rod (and therefore need more than one licence) • Buy a number of day or week licences, rather than a single annual licence) • Companions (who might consider ‘themselves to have been freshwater fishing’ [EA, 2002] • So the figures variously deflate (through exclusions) and inflate (through double-counting and interpretations of ‘going fishing’) • This determines who can be considered in angling policy (and, therefore, which anglers are enacted)

19. Numbers and rhetoric • Conceptions of ‘angling’ – numbers and context • Sport England shows angling as one of a number of forms of ‘sport and active recreation’ • EA discussions of angling give a different context • Angling viewed on its own • Anglers as a percentage of the total population • Sport England contextualises angling as unimportant, whereas the EA’s rhetoric suggests it has widespread benefits and importance

20. Enacting angling • The various methodologies result in multiple constructions of angling and anglers. • Law and Urry (2004) argue that methods of social inquiry result in the enacting of multiple realities • However, we argue that it is the acting on results of methods that produce these multiple realities

21. Enacting angling • “Well yes, because the feeling is that the funding - it’s this ‘will the funding follow the numbers?’ If the funding’s going to follow the numbers and the numbers are wrong - if the numbers are excessively understated, the funding will differ” [Angling governing body representative] • “…you have to be careful with the rod license figures…they signed up to a 1% increase every year. Now, amazingly, they said they managed to increase them by 1% this year. Now, I don’t believe that. I believe they cooked that somehow because how can you increase the figures by exactly the amount you were trying to increase them by?” [Angling governing body representative] • “I think they [Sport England] got an artificially low figure…the EA got upset about the figures because obviously it weakened their case about spending lots of money on angling development” [Angling governing body representative]

22. Reflections • We suggest that it is not just different methods that produce different realities [ontological politics] but the differential acting on the outcomes of these methods • Here rhetoric is used to persuade others about particular realities that are the outcomes of methods- that is people are persuaded that particular methods produce ‘better realities’ by the rhetoric that surrounds these. • Once a phenomenon has been singled out for counting the nature of that phenomenon is altered- different ways of counting can therefore generate different phenomena and meanings associated with these. • Numbers can be interpreted differently within organisations- people can critique the assumptions or practices behind the numbers generated within organisations. • Those that count numbers are also subject to social processes [i.e. giving monetary values to angling]- that is numbers can be ‘fudged’ or ‘manipulated’ in some way