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the nets during mattanza can be found in shops on both of the islands. On first impression

there is something about the streets and piazzas that is akin to Zukin’s notion of “vernacular

spaces”, ‘sources of identity and belonging, affective qualities that the idea of intangible

culture expresses, refines and sustains’ (2012, p. 282). The place name labelling of canned

tuna from San Pietro (Carloforte) is an example of a product that represents this kind of

notion of provenance. What is interesting here, however, is the placement of these objects as

tokens to return home with after visiting the island. These objects and imagery have become

symbols of the tonnara on which tourism capitalises.

Traditions are made available for consumption. Yet there is a discord between the

forms of tradition available to consume and the realities of those workers, ecosystems and

cultures that help to sell such traditions. Ananya Roy would call this an ideology of space,

where form and social practices are separated and space is recreated through the deployment

of tradition (2004, p. 63). Practices have clearly changed in Favignana and in San Pietro.

With those practices, ways of life have also changed. Yet certain forms (of ways of life) have

remained. Forms that have remained have become signs of tradition to consume. For

example, tradition is consumed through imagery (postcards, posters, product labels), tourist

activities, food products (canned and cured tuna), as well as through the literal consumption

of local cuisine at restaurants or on pescaturismo boats. In Favignana where the last mattanza

was in 2007, fresh tuna hangs in the doorway of the local fish shop in town (see fig. 6.7) as a

sign that evokes the past when seen in combination with the other signs (posters, postcards or

the tonnara museum). To make these associations even stronger, characters such as

Giacchino and Clemente appear in imagery used to promote the gourmet tuna shops and

products in the town centre (see fig. 6.8). They are also both familiar faces on postcard at

souvenir shops (see figs 6.9 and 6.10). Giacchino is a tall and large, charismatic man in his

late 60s, who is often hanging out at in the piazza or down at the wharf. He is not only a local

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