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These losses (cultural and natural) are connected through regulatory responses to

overfishing, a point that must be taken seriously in any integrated sustainability project. Such

losses (potential or actual) of species always involve a ‘distinct unravelling’ of forms of life,

as van Dooren (2014, p. 12) has eloquently put it:

...human and more-than-human ways of life, languages, ways of mourning and
being with others, even livelihoods and diverse cultural and religious worlds are
often drawn into the fray as species move toward, and then beyond, the edge of
extinction.

For van Dooren the focus is on those species that have moved beyond the edges of extinction.

For my case study, the moving toward (or at least the perceived moving toward) extinction,

along with the political context and response to the threat of extinction, is the most relevant

point. I want to better understand the idea that forms of life (involving the human and the

more-than-human) come into and out of existence, and also consider the conflict and

experiences of loss felt by some people, such as activists, community, marine biologists and

fishers. The mattanza, as a practice central to modes of being and knowing for so many

centuries, is on the edge of extinction. At the same time, bluefin is moving away from the

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edge as it begins to recover from overfishing . Analysing these facts, along with the
conditions (political, cultural, legal and biological) of sustainability through which loss takes

place, will help us better understand and speak about culture as the fourth pillar of

sustainability.

I explore this moment of change, which characterises the contemporary tonnara,

through the idea of durable and fleeting assemblages. I want to better understand how the

mattanza, as an enduring component of the tonnara, might be passing. My theoretical

approach to change returns us to Mol’s concept of reality as multiple, performed and open to

interferences (1999, pp. 76-77). Assemblages, such as the tonnara, are formed and undone

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