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Fig. 5.4 Our oceans in crisis (Anita 2014).

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Fisheries are hybrid entities continually adapting to circumstances. The

contemporary tonnara fishery is no exception. It is an example of a fishery that challenges

the classifications of tradition/modern. Its transnational relationships also disturbs

local/global categories. While it is a commercial business that now sells to a giant

multinational company, it also has a long history embedded in the community. And while it

must compete with industrial fisheries for quota, it is different from those fisheries because of

its fishing technologies. However, the new addition of sea cages and fattening ranches also

presents a challenge to the definition of a traditional fishing technique. In this context,

Giuliano’s reasoning for doing mattanza in 2013 – for the sake of culture – seems tokenistic.

With the recent changes to the tonnara, harvest and post-harvest knowledge and practices are

precarious. In this context, can the tonnara be considered a traditional fishery?

The consequences of these binaries for the tonnara are manifold. First, fisher

knowledge becomes precarious in relation to policy and as a knowledge practice connected to

the mattanza, since it neither fits into the artificial poles of tradition/modern nor local/global.

Secondly, on a discursive level the consequence is an artificial conception of culture divorced

from its imbedded history. Finally, from a political viewpoint the tonnara misses out on

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