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reconfiguration of knowledge hierarchies.

In 2013 in San Pietro new ontologies were emerging. For most people, the experience

was one of dissatisfaction with the present situation, while some experienced a widening of

possibilities and others carried a sense of precariousness about the future. I focused on the

mattanza in relation to quota and fierce competition for quota. Changes to the ontological

dimensions of the tonnara itself were a focal point and I theorised this transformation arguing

that reality is multiple and performed, and interferences can occur that displace some

realities. For the tonnara to function and continue it had to change some of the most

fundamental aspects of its operations, namely the mattanza and post-harvest curing practices

and economy. The sustainability situation interfered with practices of harvesting, curing,

trading and tasting, as well as people’s sense of identity and forms of knowledge that were

part of the mattanza. On an ontological level when we consider the tonnara as a cultural

fishing system, these changes question the very cultural and historic definition of the tonnara.

This approach positioned the tonnara as constituted through relational practices, and the

people who participate in the tonnara, to varying degrees, as also constituted in part through

relational practices. This framing positioned practice as the means through which relations

are enacted and transformed. I argued that to practice mattanza or to process and preserve

tuna is also to practice relationships among fishermen, and between fishermen and tuna. This

argument questions whether without these relationships we can still call the tonnara a

tonnara. The trap as the point of capture now defines the tonnara. This particular

transformation involving the addition of fattening ranches undermines the integrity of what is

being sustained from socio-economic, cultural and ecological perspectives, highlighting a

paradox of the four-pillar model of sustainability. Again, this is an example of the productive

capacity of sustainability functioning within an industry driven by capitalist concerns to

increase the value of tuna and to compensate for restricted quota.

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