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(sustainability/traditional knowledge discourses, the survival of a trap fishery, regional and

global management regimes and scientific communities)? What constitutes a fishing system –

the trap, the harvest, the community? Where is culture located? In drawing attention to

certain places, technologies and knowledge, what becomes shadowed?

Contradictory ideas about tradition are revealed when we think about when, how and

by whom tradition is mobilised (or not). The harvest is a socio-technological practice and a

site of accumulated knowledge. It is therefore interesting that the EU proposal supports the

continuation of the traditional trap but the harvest is disposable, while environmental NGOs

have questioned the traditional and eco-friendly status of the tonnara in relation to the

disposal of the harvest and introduction of fattening farms.

For obvious reasons in the next chapter the term tradition will continue to be an

important term to explore. I will look into how and where the term is defined and used, and

the different political contexts (supranational, community, institutional) in which it is made,

undone and remade are significant. The term seems malleable and has different potential and

limitations in different contexts. It has become apparent that specific aspects of culture are

identified as worth saving for specific ends. In the case of the tonnara, it is the fishery as a

fixed trap that is important for its ecologically friendly characteristics and for its data

generating capacity. Social issues such as employment are certainly important and referred to

but their importance stops at the activities of capturing fish. In relation to definitions of

tradition and innovation in the literature on traditional/ecological knowledge, the recent

configuration of the tonnara could be viewed as innovation. However, there is something

about the desperation through which the tonnara “innovated” that suggests a less positive

motivation for change. Perhaps this is just a better deal than complete loss of the fishery in

what can only be characterised as a dire situation. In order to explore these tensions among

innovation, transformation and loss, in the next chapter we return to Annemarie Mol’s (1999)

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