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What ways of labouring, being and knowing are made possible through the recent changes?

After focusing on San Pietro and Favignana I then open the discussion to look at some of the

possibilities (and constraints) afforded to those working in wider fishing industries that are a

part of a sustainability assemblage.

Each individual worker's experience of the current situation, their reflections on the

past and the future of tuna fishing and the tonnara, is different and cannot be summarised

through the idea that the community or the fishermen of San Pietro or Favignana experience

change and reflect on the past and future in the same manner. The sense of loss of the

tonnara (in the case of Favignana) or the mattanza (in the case of San Pietro) expressed by

the workers seems to be connected to a worker’s level of emotion and time invested in the

work and traditions, paternal lineage and a person’s professional position. For example,

Renato compared his involvement to his brother’s: ‘my brother also worked in the tonnara

but just for work. I have always done this for passion’ (2013, pers. comm. 12 June). Another

example is Tammaro, who in the context of a conversation about regulation and industrial

fishing, Tammaro told me he had been interested in the practice of preserving tuna since he

was young and watched his grandfather.

We do this for passion then comes money, because if you do a thing for passion,
you do it well. But at the foundation there is always heart and passion. (M
Tammaro 2013, pers. comm. 2 July)

Tammaro, who was closely associated with the tonnara through family, expressed sentiments

of regret towards the current situation of the tonnara and fishery regulation. The level of

frustration, which many workers expressed in regards to fishery regulations and resulting

circumstances, seemed to depend on a workers level of involvement, as well as their

knowledge of the regulatory circumstances or at least what they had heard of the situation.

For some of the young tonnarotti in San Pietro, this was simply work, an income, and it was

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