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think through the tensions between tradition and transformation. While it mostly lives in the

temperate pelagic ecosystem of the North Atlantic waters, Atlantic bluefin is a highly

migratory species and expresses homing behaviour and spawning site fidelity to the

Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico (ICCAT 2015b, p. 83). Each year in April and

May Atlantic bluefin travel along the southwestern coast of Italy where it is known as tonno

rosso (red tuna) for its deep red flesh. In coastal communities it continues to be a powerful

cultural symbol and plays an important economic role. Since 900AD Sicilian coastal

communities have used the tonnare (plural) to take advantage and intercept the tuna on its

annual migration. A wealth of ecological knowledge, food culture, economy and a strong

sense of local identity continues to be part of the few remaining tonnare in Sardinia as well as

those communities where the tonnare existed until recently. Atlantic bluefin and the three

remaining tonnare in San Pietro (Sardinia) along with the ex tonnara community in

Favignana (Sicily) form my main case study through which I consider the central challenges

of sustaining fish and fishing cultures. This means that while my thesis contributes to a

broader discussion of sustainability, it is a detailed account of the particular conditions

created by efforts to bring Atlantic bluefin into a state of sustainability in the specific context

of southern Italy.

In these case studies I analyse how sustainability comes to define objects and

activities, and also legitimises certain ways of knowing and being with tuna. My interest here

is in the socio-cultural function of the term sustainability. The fact that these fisheries have

existed for over a thousand years, that there is currently local and regional effort to maintain

the remaining tonnare and cultural activities, as well as an effort to bring back the tonnara of

Favignana, indicates that the tonnara and these research sites are significant in contemporary

sustainability politics. This is especially the case in relation to politics modelled on an

integrated notion of sustainability, which attempt to bring together socio-cultural,

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