Page 251 - KATE_JOHNSTON_2017

88
send representatives to Brussels . Within this context the EU appeal to tradition and to
science for a larger share of quota, is significant.

I have already established that a temporal differentiation of a past from the present is

essential to the identification and articulation of tradition (Schochet 2004, p. 307). Scalar

differentiations also characterise the use of the term tradition as a political strategy. It is one

way the tonnara can be contrasted with purse seines. Interestingly, comparisons tend to draw

on but not completely submit to a tradition/modern binary. For instance, the EU proposal

states that due to the large physical size of some of the traps (Spanish traps can reach as long

as 6 miles), the traps are not considered small-scale. This point is consistent with Di Natale et

al. (2009), who state that the first industrial scale fishery in the Mediterranean used a similar

trap like system (Ambrosio & Xandri 2015, p. 13). To an extent, this standpoint breaks away

from the binaries of tradition/modern and small-scale/large-scale by positioning the traps as

industrial, while also referring to them within the document as artisanal. As I have already

argued the tonnara contemporarily and even historically disrupts scalar and temporal

binaries. The authors of the proposal still had to situate the traps carefully, so as to

simultaneously differentiate the traps from purse seines, which are typically positioned as the

large-scale and industrial, while accounting for the contemporary status of the traps as

industrial and large-scale. For example, even though the proposal avoids mention of the

addition of the sea cage and ranches, these needs to be accounted for as they extend the scalar

and geographical dimensions of the Sardinian tonnare. In relation to this point, Giuliano

informed me that the EU understood the current situation of the trap, which has resulted in

the tuna going to Malta instead of being processed locally through the mattanza. So the

authors of the proposal had to tread a fine line. Discursively they adopted terms like artisan,

historical and sustainable, and referred to its status as a traditional trap in order to give such

arguments weight.

239