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eventually MSC certified sustainable tinned tuna. An interest in sustainable certification led

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me to a tonnara fishery in San Pietro to follow a certified sustainable tin of Atlantic bluefin .

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Unsurprisingly, the certification did not last long . Rationalising the sustainability of any

bluefin product would have been difficult in light of its status as endangered, tight

regulations, and environmental campaigns (some of which argue for a complete ban on

bluefin fishing).

Nonetheless, this brief encounter encouraged me to pursue the tonnara as a research

site because it offered a chance to analyse sustainability practices and instances of a

sustainability assemblage in a different way to the pole and line skipjack tuna. The case study

of Atlantic bluefin prompted questions about the compatibility of sustaining fish while also

sustaining fishing communities and cultural practices. To respond to this dilemma and

analyse the local impacts of a tuna sustainability crisis, I undertook fieldwork in two fishing

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communities in southern Italy – San Pietro in Sardinia (commonly referred to by its main

town name Carloforte) and Favignana in Sicily (see fig. 1.2 and 1.3). The tuna trade routes

have recently changed in San Pietro, with the addition of a sea cage and route to fattening

ranches in Malta. Rather than following the new route, which would have taken me on a slow

tug boat to Malta and then a tranship freezer to Tokyo, I remained on the island to follow the

local market and conflicts arising from these recent changes and the tight regulatory

conditions. I conducted ethnographic research on the tonnara. This included interviewing a

variety of stakeholders and conducting participant observation on land and at sea. I followed

tuna locally on the island, observing the production of preserved tuna organs, eating tuna in

many different contexts, and documenting the variety of tuna products and tuna in local

restaurant and fish shops. My focus became the absence of certain objects and practices –

local tuna, tuna organs and the mattanza harvest – and the ensuing conflicts due to the

addition of the sea cage and fattening ranches. The tonnara became the main site through

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