Page 224 - KATE_JOHNSTON_2017

achieve hegemony (2000, p. 132). For my argument in this chapter it is not only the position

(proximity to State) but also more importantly, the very knowledge translation and

transformation process.

Experiential Knowledge

So far I have argued that the terms traditional and local are restrictive for fisheries such as the

tonnara. We have seen that both fishery science and fisher knowledge is historical and is

generated in specific localised contexts. We have also seen how fishery science and

management is practiced and comes to be embedded in the local context. The process of

decontextualisation is therefore important. To understand better the contours of power in

environmental policy making and management, it is more important to follow the process

through which some knowledge is given universal status and comes to matter. In the example

of the claim by tonnarotti, fishery scientists are clearly the experts who decide which

hypotheses are worth testing, and who then undertake specific tests, frame the knowledge and

give it a new platform in scientific journals.

Now that we understand the limitations of the terms traditional and local knowledge,

how can we identify and talk about fisher knowledge and issues of precarity and power if we

cannot call it traditional or local ecological knowledge? Although difficult to measure, we

could look at the components of environmental knowledge. Robbins provides some example:

...visions of nature, the priorities and preferences for species and landscapes [or
seascapes] inventories of nature; attributes of nature, the inventories of species
characteristics and uses; and accounts of natural change, the explanation of
recovery and decline. (2000, p. 132)

The wealth of knowledge about tuna, ecosystems and the tonnara certainly fits into these

components. For the tonnara, the term experiential or what Pálsson (2000) calls tacit

knowledge, might be more useful. He refers to the process of enskilment or finding ones ‘sea

212