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Chapter five returns us to the argument of chapter two. I deepen this argument by

considering how the discursive power of scalar and temporal binaries bear upon the tonnara.

Specifically I focus on knowledge and differing knowledge practices (e.g. fisher knowledge,

scientific knowledge) and ask whether the terms Traditional Ecological Knowledge (hereafter

referred to as traditional knowledge) and Local Ecological Knowledge (hereafter referred to

as local knowledge) are useful for the tonnara. “Precarious knowledge” becomes a way for

me to articulate power relations among institutionalised forms of knowledge and fisher

knowledge. The theme of precarity emerges as a theme that defines the contemporary

tonnara, fishermen and tuna. These are entities and beings in flux, not only because of

inherent characteristics (e.g. seasonality of migration, work, fluctuations of sea, climate) but

also because of unstable circumstances produced through socio-technical and cultural

conditions of a sustainability assemblage.

Temporal and scalar tensions are themes that weave through this thesis and come to

discursive significance in chapters five and six. Becky Mansfield has suggested that scale has

no ‘ontological status outside of social relations’ (2005, p. 468). Particular scales are given

significance within the social context of fishery governance. In chapters five and six, I

explore how scalar (local/global) and temporal (tradition/modern) framings are discursive

tools that fishers use to define their work and the system of the tonnara in contrast to other

fisheries, with whom they compete for quota. This is regardless of the contemporary reality

and the history of the tonnara, which disturbs these binaries. These scalar and temporal

tensions relate to the central concern of how to define culture. They also emphasise the

particular problem of defining the boundaries of culture during a period of transformation.

Chapter six explores what is at stake ontologically as a result of the recent transformation of

the tonnara. The mattanza is at the centre of these transformations. Because tuna are

transported live to fattening ranches in Malta there is no local harvest. In this chapter I ask

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