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networks including taste networks can also be rendered obsolete. When a highly valued and

endangered species like bluefin is at the centre of such networks, there are material, ethical

and political limitations to some tastes. The taste network that has evolved through the

mattanza and local curing of organs and canning, changed most dramatically in 2015 with the

cessation of the mattanza.

As we saw in chapter four, there is a sense of conflict and concern about the future of

the tonnara. A 2010 survey of 100 people in the community (Carloforte and Portoscuso)

noted that they were all:

seriously worried about the possible disappearance of the “tonnara” because of the
damage to the local economy in general, the uncertainty of supply of tuna in the
future and for the loss of a deep-rooted tradition. (Addis et al. 2012b, p. 383)

While I was undertaking fieldwork, I noticed that the work of those involved in the daily

running of the tonnara was marked by a sense of precarity – would there be a mattanza,

would there be enough quota, would the tonnara continue? The precarity I refer to manifests

differently depending mostly on a person’s position and level of professional development,

which of course is also linked to areas such as social situation, class position, level of

education and opportunity.

Changes are also marked along gendered lines. Indeed these are men fishing,

transferring or killing, preserving and trading tuna. Women were historically involved in the

canneries, and now there are some women at sea, such as a scientific observer, a journalist, a

diver intern and myself. Women also purchase and prepare tuna, not only for the home but

also as hotel owners or fish shop workers. However, the mattanza is traditionally, and when

practiced today, continues to be, a male practice often with paternal lineages. Symbolically

and structurally the mattanza has been central to the construction of the masculine lives of the

tonnarotti. Thus, a specific question that arises is what gendered ways of doing and knowing

are changing? While my ethnographic material does not afford a thorough account of gender,

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