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which might add to descriptions and debates around different ways of knowing tuna and the

power inequities of making certain tuna knowledge legitimate.

Certainly expert knowledge comes to the tonnara in the way of scientific observers,

quota, fishery policy, and is embodied by the tonnarotti. As I indicated through the accounts

of the mattanza in the previous and current chapters, there are now scientific observers, coast

guards and university staff contracted by ICCAT, who are present at certain moments in the

season, such as during the mattanza and the transfer of tuna to the sea cage. These experts are

charged with the tasks of monitoring the tonnara to ensure compliance with fishery

regulations and of generating data through sampling and tagging activities. New forms of

knowledge, activities and institutional affiliations, which are based on scientific ideas and

marine sustainability discourses, have arrived with the presence of experts and the

administration of quota. There are also other experts, such as environmental NGO groups and

tuna traders. These different stakeholders bring diverse opinions, values, knowledge, skills

and modes of managing resources, often leading to conflict over the management and use of

Atlantic bluefin. So, Perley and Heatherington’s epistemic imperialism is a reasonable

framing to understand the power relations between experts and fishermen. Furthermore,

expert knowledge in fishery science is used to resolve problems in a global manner and hence

universalises what are locally based practices and histories.

My main concern regarding the contextual/decontextual distinction relates to scale

and temporality. The positioning of some knowledge as local and some as detached, largely

ignores the connection between local communities and the global, as well as the local

contexts of all knowledge production. The tonnara simply does not fit into these discursive

and political poles and it never really has. Like most examples of cultural knowledge,

knowledge exchange has been a common occurrence and so it is impossible to define it

simply as local and traditional knowledge. The history of tonnara ownership since 900AD

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