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in the tonnara. In proposing specific categories of culture and cultural diversity and

identifying specific groups and scales upon which to represent such diversity, there are

limitations set around what culture is and therefore what it is not. The wider implication is

that such classifications can become a source of exclusion and thus a paradox of cultural

diversity. In addition, as I will revisit and demonstrate in chapter five, many of the

epistemological distinctions arising from critiques of Western science based on nature/culture

dualisms create further dualisms – tradition/modern, local/global. The example that I have

briefly mentioned above is the notion of contextual and decontextual knowledge. In the case

of knowledge, Western science becomes discursively and epistemologically detached from

the local and from its own historical and cultural biography, and from its own traditions. Of

course there are certainly universal tendencies of western science, as I will argue in the next

chapter. For example, fishery science has been made possible and is now the cornerstone of

marine sustainability through a powerful global discourse, which is produced and reproduced

in global institutions textbooks, policy, activism and so forth.

But it pays to remember that effort goes into holding these universals in place, in the

same way, I argue, that it goes into defining and reifying concepts of tradition and local and

placing them in opposition to modern and global. Another challenge is the notion of

innovation, which is often part of definitions of tradition, wherein traditional and local

knowledge includes ‘the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local

communities around the world’ (Trospetta & Prosper 2012, p. 6). Yet, as I will demonstrate

in chapter six such definitions are usually highly dependent on the political context. The

terms tradition and local are not always suitable in the contemporary global context within

which environmental issues are identified and addressed. For instance, how does cultural

hybridity or how do the cultural practices that fall outside of the classifications of tradition

figure in contemporary sustainability discourse?

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