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governance and intervention mean that attempts to account for tuna as well as tuna fishers

(e.g. in the EU proposal) are impeded by the enduring institutional separation of nature and

culture as distinct areas of intervention. Later in the thesis I explored the epistemological

changes of the tonnara through a critique of the notion of contextual/decontextual knowledge

and the terms traditional and local knowledge. I have argued that in the long history of the

tonnara, knowledge practices have undergone transformation and connected with diverse

forms of knowledge, thus blurring the line between tradition/modern, local/global,

contextual/decontextual. By situating culture as knowledge in practice and connecting

knowledge to issues of power, I demonstrated the role of experts and the process by which

certain knowledge comes to matter in tuna management. I did this by demonstrating the

epistemological complexity of the trap and I highlighted the process of decontextualisation

that knowledge must go through to become legitimate in global fishery governance. The

example I focused on was the decontextualisation and legitimisation process of the mistral

wind hypothesis of the tonnarotti. This led me to use the term precarious knowledge to

explain the relationship between fisher knowledge/expertise and institutional forms of

knowledge that inform environmental governance. This analysis suggested that part of the

project of sustaining tuna involves sustaining knowledge, and institutions of fishery

management and science. This connects to my arguments that cultural aspects of an

environmental conflict are always being sustained whether or not the project explicitly aims

to sustain culture. This is another example of the productive capacity of sustainability.

I have focused on quota as a particularly powerful sustainability device, which not

only governs fish and fishing systems, but also the people who are part of those systems.

While an important outcome of quota is to curb the decline of tuna, there are also

epistemological and ontological outcomes. I illustrated knowledge practices that the

tonnarotti must perform to adhere to quota rules. I also suggested there has been a

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