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effective – organising and regulating relations of power...it is called “a regime of
truth”. (Hall 2007, p. 58)

In detailing the emergence of an anti-whaling discourse Charlotte Epstein (2008, p. 2) draws

on Foucault’s concept of the relationship between discourse and power to define discourse as:

…a cohesive ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations about a specific
object that frame that object in a certain way and, therefore, delimit the
possibilities for action in relation to it. It is a structured yet open and dynamic
entity.

Sustainability is an effective discourse, and tuna and the tonnara are objects (and

issues) contemporarily circumscribed through its ensemble of ideas, concepts and

categorisations. Discourse functions to define and limit, not only the term sustainability, but

also the terms through which sustainability can be used. Analysing sustainability as a

discourse we can consider the particular forms of sustainability that have emerged and where

they become formalised. In my research this inquiry extends across the institutional spaces

and to the sea in order to examine the material forms of the discourse, how and where it is

produced, organised, regulated, and reproduced. It involves analysing forms of knowledge

that underpin sustainability, such as concepts of the environment, conservation,

nature/culture, and production, along with their genealogies. We can also ask what are the

discourses that overlap, such as various environmentalism discourses, food provenance

(localism) discourses, as well as discourses of development and capitalism. For example, the

way sustainability is practiced across diverse industries and fields – from food to architecture,

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from education to politics – has offered an opportunity for the kind of environmentalism

that fits within a capitalist framework.

This brings us to the point that discourse is not simply about ideas and language but is

grounded in everyday practice and objects. Hall reminds us discourse ‘is not based on the

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