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conditions of its emergence. Above all the Coles eco tin encouraged me to consider how this

product figures in a much wider and diverse assembly of sustainability practices and objects.

In this chapter, I begin to think about sustainability as a global assemblage made up of

heterogeneous actors and situations. The conceptual framework of assemblage is inspired by

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the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and has been used widely in cultural studies.
It has also become an important way to conceptualise and analyse global environmental

problems and responses. An ocean sustainability crisis and responses to that crisis (e.g. quota,

certification) are structured in and through a sustainability assemblage. A sustainability

assemblage includes diverse actors (e.g. fishermen, scientists, coast guards, community

members, journalists, activists, entrepreneurs, politicians, consumers). It stretches across

wide-ranging institutions (e.g. United Nations, non-government organisations, universities,

governments, regional fishery bodies). It involves different practices and objects (e.g. eco-

certification, quota, tuna). It encompasses a range of objectives (e.g. sustainability,

livelihoods, satisfying tastes, equality, profit, preserving tradition). And, it includes a range of

discourses (e.g. three and four-pillar sustainability, tradition, cultural diversity). The Coles

eco tin is merely the starting point to explore this assemblage.

The current chapter outlines my method of inquiry, begins to articulate my conceptual

framing, and provides historic context to tuna and sustainability. I seek to describe and

advocate following (accredited to multiple scholars including Appadurai, Marcus, Cook et al.)

and assemblic ethnography (Zigon 2015) as useful conceptual and practical tools for cultural

studies research into environmental issues and conflicts. Following combined with assemblic

ethnography offer a way to attune to local manifestations of a wider sustainability assemblage

through multisite, multispecies and multi-thing ethnography. Both methods tend to approach

social research from the starting point of a thing. For the purpose of my research, in this

chapter, the thing is the Coles eco tin. I “open” up the tin in order to understand better how it

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