Page 196 - KATE_JOHNSTON_2017

assemblage. The socio-political and ecological context in the Mediterranean included a tuna

gold rush, a regional quota war between industrial fishers and the tonnara, a global market

driven by capitalist logic, and strict regulations. To which in this context the tonnara adapted

by transforming its trading relationships and system of harvest, selling the entire quota of live

tuna to the Fuentes group. The introduction of the sea cage, the reduction of mattanza and the

associated processing of and trade in preserved tuna organs, was a point of tension among

community members, owners, scientists, activists and NGOs. The year I visited there was one

mattanza in San Pietro and by 2015 there were none. In 2013 Favignana was in a post

tonnara period and the pressing issue was the dwindling catch due to illegal fishing and

undesirable alternative employment.

In this chapter I have provided examples of the ways that different parties frame and

bring proof to sustainability debates. I also followed those issues and parties that are often left

out of public debate. For example the concern over the demise of the mattanza is very

localised and is underrepresented in the media, campaigns and research, let alone to the

distant places such as the EU or UN where problems are presented and solutions formed.

Rather, matters of facts are produced in this context but then debated in such distant places

amongst particular groups (experts, lobbyists, or environmental and animal welfare groups)

with their own particular concerns. Those fisheries that are part of decision making, typically

have the capital to lobby. Whereas fisheries such as the tonnara and many other small

southern fisheries are left behind without the economic and social capital needed to

participate.

And so in San Pietro in 2013, the gathering of diverse people around objects and

issues was far from what Latour had in mind when he talked about the aim of reframing

politics through a dingpolitik with an ‘object-oriented democracy’ (Latour 2005, p. 14). That

is, those who gathered in 2013 were not all evenly placed to represent the issues at hand and

184