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The point I want to make here is that by nominating specific groups to represent

culture and cultural diversity and by suggesting that the alternative model to dualism is

mutualism, a picture emerges as to what kind of culture holds the key to environmental

solutions or sustainability, and what kind of cultures and cultural practices should be

sustained. There are two issues at stake. First, there is a tendency to romanticise or

essentialise tradition and indigenous people, practices and cosmologies, with the potential to

place limitations on such groups. Secondly, blindness to the cultural dimensions of

commercial and large-scale fisheries persists. This point has been taken up elsewhere (see

Johannes et al. 2000). I am certainly not suggesting that there should not be a category of

indigenous fishing or for indigenous rights to resources. On the contrary, this is an extremely

important framework and many indigenous people the world over are still struggling to have

their rights to marine resources acknowledged. I am also not arguing that indigenous and

traditional knowledge should not play a part in sustainability programs, because this is also

incredibly important, as illustrated by Begossi and Silviano (2005) earlier. But in the context

of this thesis and its case studies, I am arguing for caution in making classifications and for a

more nuanced understanding of the category of culture (and the associated terms tradition,

local, artisan, small-scale). In particular and of relevance to my fieldwork, the category of

tradition needs to be problematised so as to consider its scalar and temporal complexities: that

is, the inter-connections between local communities – their histories, cultural practices,

values, meanings, understandings of and relationships with environments – and the wide-

spanning global context within which they operate and are intimately connected. To this

effect I will critique the categories of small-scale/large-scale and local/global, which have

become part of sustainable seafood discourses and are evident certainly in my cases studies.

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