Coffee & Geography Season 6 Episode 19
I met Edward Ofori-Annor at the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference in London. We were having lunch, we got talking, and he mentioned he’s doing a PhD on the domestication of tropical freshwater fish in Germany. “Tropical fish in German aquaria” might sound like a narrow subject, but listening to Edward I quickly found out that it really isn’t.
It’s aquatic ecosystems in the tropics, historical trade routes, fish farms, collectors and exporters, airports, wholesalers, retailers, hobbyists, glass tanks, heaters, filters, breeding, animal welfare, human livelihoods, and the trade in living things from the Global South to the Global North.
But what about the fish themselves? Are they beautiful? Do they have particular shapes, colours, behaviours? Are they easy to keep at home? Do they breed in captivity? What water temperature do they like? How do they breathe? Are they social or aggressive?
According to Edward, all of those questions were answered through human evaluation. The fish had to be deemed beautiful by humans, worth keeping at home, easy to move and transport, and capable of thriving in an aquarium. His research interest is in how the biology of the animals shaped our understanding and our technologies, and how that combination led to their trade. So the fish weren’t just arbitrary products moving through a value chain designed entirely by humans. Their biological characteristics helped make the aquarium look the way it does, helped determine the trade routes, and helped create the expertise required to keep the fish alive.
And a discussion about beautiful fish turned out to be a very geographical conversation!
Ghana, Germany and the language of research
Edward is from Ghana, has lived in Germany for more than seven years, and is a doctoral researcher at the University of Cologne in the Economic Geography and Environmental Change Group. His research interests include human geography, economic geography, global value chains, commodification, and relations between the Global South and the Global North.
His research requires him to read sources in German from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Edward explained that learning modern German wasn’t the difficult part; a lot has changed since those sources were written, particularly the spelling, characters and expressions, so even a native German speaker may need to adapt when researching them.
He gave me a small example: the modern German word Tier, meaning animal, used to be spelled Thier. It was a tiny detail, but it brought me back to a theme that has come up on the podcast before which is the relationship between language and knowledge. Understanding the language in which ideas, observations and assumptions were recorded is very important. Translating research from another language makes it available to a wider audience, but some of the subtlety of the original is usually lost. Edward writes his papers in English while drawing on German sources, which makes language part of the research itself.
Geographical identity and hospitality
When I asked about geographical identity, Edward said that living in Germany hasn’t changed his sense of being Ghanaian and African. For him, hospitality in Ghana centres on food. It might be something as simple as a drink or a meal, but it all comes back to food. He often eats with his family in the evening – rice and stew, or some meat or fish – and that isn’t only about nourishment. It gives him and his family a sense of connection.
I couldn’t help thinking about my own experiences in Malawi, where I was involved in a teacher exchange programme. People there wanted to share food with me, again and again. I think it’s the social act of eating together that creates a sense of being welcome, of being part of something. I should be clear that I’m not trying to say all fifty countries in Africa are the same; there’s enormous diversity across the continent. But there are shared threads in how food is used to build connections and create welcome.
Germany introduced Edward to another food geography. He noticed the large Turkish population there and discovered döner. Now, every Saturday, he goes to the kiosk, buys a döner and a coke, and walks home.
Food is one of the most revealing things people carry with them, without needing to bring a map. Recipes, ingredients and ways of cooking and eating have to change and adapt to new places. Something belonging to one community is taken up by another in the form of food, and still shows traces of its origins.
Finding the research
Edward had no childhood intention of investigating the value chains of ornamental fish. He was working in an administrative job in the international office at the University of Cologne when, by chance, he found a request on the university website for researchers to join a project called Showcasing the Wild: Commodification and Standardization in Tropical Freshwater Fish Value Chains. He contacted the professor leading the project, sent in his CV, and swapped the administrative position for a research one.
I enjoy career stories like this because they disrupt the idea that everybody else has followed a plan since the age of sixteen. Edward had an interest in nature and environmental change, found an opening he hadn’t expected, and recognised that fish sit within a complex social and economic network.
The Showcasing the Wild project examines how tropical freshwater ornamental fish have become tradeable commodities. It traces farmed fish from countries such as Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, and wild-caught fish from African lakes such as Malawi and Tanganyika. It’s part of the wider Commodifying the Wild research consortium, which asks what happens when parts of “wild nature” become commodities.
The word “wild” turns out to be complicated. Edward explained that wild means something outside human control – even though we’re modifying the world we live in through pollution, climate change, land use and extraction. An aquarium gives us the illusion that we’re at home with a piece of nature. But to sustain that illusion we need glass, electricity, manufactured fish food, a filtration system, transport, expertise, and constant management of this tiny bit of the wild. That tiny bit of wild isn’t outside the world of industry, but instead completely depends on it.
How fish shaped the aquarium
Edward presented his work at this year’s RGS-IBG conference under the title Fluid Alliances: Human, Technical and Exotic Aquatic Actors in the Making of the Aquarium in Germany from 1870 to 1914. The title gives the game away. People set up aquariums in the nineteenth century for many reasons, and the properties of different fish affected how the aquarium was designed, bred and produced.
What effect did a fish’s temperature range have on the design of the tank? What effect did its breathing mechanism have on how we designed oxygenation? What about feeding habits and specific food requirements? What happened when fish were aggressive and had to be kept apart? How did breeding habits affect our ability to keep fish in captivity? What effect did body shape, fin and colour have on consumer demand?
Fish and technical systems evolved together. Advances in glass technology allowed better tanks that displayed fish properly. Heating made it possible to keep tropical fish in Europe through the winter. Filtration and aeration gave us control over water quality. Improvements in shipping, packaging and transport reduced mortality and expanded international trade.
Paradise fish, fighting fish and angelfish
Edward has researched several species that mattered to the history of fishkeeping in Germany: the paradise fish, the Siamese fighting fish, the peppered corydoras and the freshwater angelfish.
The paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis) was one of the first tropical fish known in Europe. It’s colourful, but what made it special was its ability to survive in variable water temperatures, which made it possible to transport across large distances and keep in captivity.
The Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) became popular because of its wonderful colour and large, elaborate fins. The male is extremely territorial, and humans have been fascinated by that aggression for a long time. Fish fighting was practised in Siamese culture for many years before the species became popular as a pet. The 1963 film From Russia with Love uses the Siamese fighting fish as an allegory for SPECTRE: the fish are lured into fighting each other, and the winner is then killed. Edward pointed out that the film came much later than the long and rich cultural history of fish fighting.
Wild Betta splendens is currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, threatened in Thailand by habitat loss, water pollution and mixing with domesticated fish. There’s a stark contrast between the selectively bred fish produced in large numbers for the pet trade and the vulnerable wild population. A fish can be abundant in our homes and in trouble in its native habitat at the same time.
Edward’s favourite is the angelfish. He believes angelfish are calm, intelligent and noble compared with the more aggressive aquarium species. They can be trained to respond to feeding signals, come to their keepers, and live in community tanks where they are suited. Edward said: “I just want to be like that: very noble, very calm.”
While recording, I noticed that an angelfish isn’t difficult to draw – it’s basically two triangles. I drew it, and then I cut that bit out of the recording, on the reasonable grounds that listeners wouldn’t be able to see it!
Domestication, vulnerability and care
An aquarium fish is completely dependent on humans. The fish keeper decides the water temperature, oxygen, filtration, tank size, food, light, companionship and shelter. A mistake in any of these areas can lead to stress, illness and death. Research into the welfare of ornamental fish has examined the risks along the whole chain – capture or breeding, handling, transport, wholesale, retail and aquarium keeping – including overcrowding, poor water quality, temperature change, disease, mechanical disturbance and inappropriate long-term care. There’s also a recognised need for better scientific knowledge, legislation and enforcement.
Different species have different requirements for temperature, diet, flow, tank size and social arrangement. Some fish can be kept together; others can’t. A fish that seems idle could be happy, frightened, sick, or reacting to conditions its keeper hasn’t recognised.
The word “ornamental” is revealing in itself. It describes the fish through its use as decoration. Some researchers have suggested the term “pet fish” instead, to help people recognise that these are sentient animals whose welfare matters.
Edward’s research adds a historical and geographical dimension. The knowledge of how to care for these animals wasn’t acquired all at once. It was learned through trial and error, observation, technological advance, and the exchange of ideas between hobbyists, scientists, breeders and traders. For the fish that died while those systems were being developed, that learning came at a cost.
Wild capture and the global trade
Before recording, I had read that a high proportion of freshwater aquarium fish are captive-bred, while ornamental marine species remain much more dependent on wild capture. The Ornamental Aquatic Trade Association estimates that more than 90% of ornamental marine fish and invertebrates are wild-caught, compared with between five and ten per cent of freshwater fish.
Wild capture can put pressure on vulnerable populations and habitats, especially where collection is poorly regulated, concentrated or destructive. Marine fish may pass through long supply chains – collectors, traders, holding facilities, exporters, airlines, importers, wholesalers, retailers – and each stage carries risks to health and survival.
But the issue isn’t solved by saying all wild capture is bad. Responsible ornamental fisheries can provide valuable livelihoods in remote communities, and where those livelihoods depend on healthy rivers, lakes or reefs, the trade can create a local incentive to protect the habitat rather than replace it with something more destructive. Remove the market without considering the people involved, and you may push communities towards alternatives that are worse for both livelihoods and ecosystems.
This is where global value chain analysis earns its keep. The consumer sees a fish in a shop or an aquarium. The geography behind it includes a fisher, breeder, local trader, transport company, exporter, airport, wholesaler, retailer, equipment manufacturer and hobbyist. Value increases as the fish moves along the chain, but the environmental risk and the physical labour aren’t distributed in the same way. The research asks who benefits, who carries the risk, whose expertise is recognised, and how standards might improve outcomes for fish, ecosystems and people.
What I took away
Before meeting Edward, I hadn’t thought deeply about the geography inside a domestic aquarium. I recognised the fish. I understood that tanks need heating, filtration and care. I knew that wildlife trade and selective breeding raise welfare and conservation questions.
I hadn’t fully considered the fish as an active participant in the history. Edward’s research shows how fish characteristics influenced human behaviour and technological development. People created aquariums to control and display aquatic life, but the fish imposed conditions on what those aquariums had to become. A species that needed warmer water demanded heating. A species able to breathe atmospheric air survived conditions that killed others. Aggression limited which animals could share a tank. Captive breeding changed the trade.
None of this removes the power imbalance. Humans choose to capture, breed, trade and display the fish. The aquarium remains an artificial environment controlled for human purposes. But it makes the relationship less one-directional than it first appears.
The episode also reminded me that familiar objects often contain much larger geographies than their size suggests. A tank in a living room can connect German historical archives with fish farms in Southeast Asia, African lakes, technological innovation, animal behaviour, global transport and household leisure. It can connect beauty with vulnerability.
The next time I see an aquarium, I’ll still enjoy watching the fish. Edward hasn’t ruined aquariums for me, but instead made them harder to view passively. I’ll be wondering where each fish came from, whether it was bred or caught, what conditions shaped its journey, and how much expertise is required to maintain the small world behind the glass.
I may also try drawing the angelfish again. Two triangles, more or less.
Further reading and links from the episode
- Edward Ofori-Annor — University of Cologne profile
- Showcasing the Wild: Commodification and Standardization in Tropical Freshwater Fish Value Chains – project page
- Ornamental Fish Value Chains — Work Package 2
- Commodifying the Wild — research consortium
- Fluid Alliances: Human, Technical and Exotic Aquatic Actors in the Making of the Aquarium in Germany from 1870 to 1914 – Edward’s paper
- IUCN Red List — Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish)
- OATA — Wild caught fish: the trade, the benefits, the facts
- Fish Welfare in the Ornamental Trade: Stress Factors, Legislation and Emerging Initiatives — review
- Stress and welfare in ornamental fishes: what can be learned from aquaculture?
