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local harvest and tuna economy) and the introduction of a system that transfers the majority

of tuna live in a cage to transport to Maltese fattening ranches and then on to Japan for sale, is

one of the most significant transformations that the tonnara, as a socio-techno-ecological

fishing system, has undergone. This chapter will begin to examine how fishery regulations,

such as quota in particular, have been important in curbing the decline in tuna stock, yet have

adversely impacted the tonnara on numerous socio-cultural and ecological levels.

I draw on the neologism “dingpolitik” and Bruno Latour’s notion of matters of

concern to frame the core issues, objects and subjects of this chapter, adding nuance to

matters of concern with the affective terms, care and conflict. I define these terms in the next

section. The meta-narrative of the chapter is that the gathering of diverse participants around

the dingpolitiks – tuna, sustainability and the tonnara – is a local formation and part of a

wider sustainability assemblage. Furthermore, the recent changes and the conditions in which

the tonnara finds itself are part of that assemblage. From the midst of this situation I argue

that the tonnara owners have instigated the changes in response to a range of conditions

formed through a sustainability assemblage.

Dingpolitik: Matters of Concern, Care and Conflict

The German neologism dingpolitik helps us to understand the gathering in San Pietro in

2013. A gathering that brought together and at times divided a mix of people. The word

“thing” (German ding) originally designated a particular archaic assembly (Latour 2005, p.

12). For many centuries it ‘meant the issue that brings people together because it divides

them’ (Latour 2005, p. 13). Gísli Pálsson (2005, p. 250) says that in Iceland the word ping

th
denotes an object as well as a gathering or an assembly. In the 9 century the parliament was

referred to as “al-thing” or “alping” (Pálsson 2005, p. 250). There are many Nordic and

Saxon examples that draw on the etymology of the word thing to indicate a political

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