IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v57y2026i1p79-102.html

How to Vaccinate a Fish: Merck, the Pharmaceutical Industry and Developing Surveillance Capitalism within the Blue Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Pahnke

Abstract

This article discusses the strategic evolution of the transnational pharmaceutical firm Merck in the animal agriculture sector, focusing especially on aquaculture. This evolution began in 2019 with Merck's development of ‘big data’ technologies (for example, cloud computing, mobile data and artificial intelligence) to control supply chains through real‐time interventions in fish monitoring and tracking, disease treatment and operation maintenance. It argues that Merck's adoption of such technologies is consistent with the capitalist accumulation strategies of the Blue Revolution, which started to promote offshore and inland aquaculture operations to meet the growing global demand for fish in the mid‐1980s. Integral to this technological evolution is surveillance capitalism, which requires individuals — in this case, fishers — to collect and share data with corporations that then control them. This study contributes to debates on the concept of surveillance capitalism, noting how Merck's version features an ideology that apparently offers solutions to problems faced by fishers but actually contributes to corporate consolidation.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Pahnke, 2026. "How to Vaccinate a Fish: Merck, the Pharmaceutical Industry and Developing Surveillance Capitalism within the Blue Revolution," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 57(1), pages 79-102, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:57:y:2026:i:1:p:79-102
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.70040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70040
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dech.70040?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:57:y:2026:i:1:p:79-102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.