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market, where 60,000 traders will move more than 2.4 million kilograms of seafood in one 12-hour shift.

loaded onto the backs of trucks in crates of crushed centuries-old practices combined with high technol-
ice, known in the trade as "tuna coffins." As rapid- ogy; realignments of labor and capital in response to
ly as they arrived, the flotilla of buyers sails out of the international regulation; shifting markets; and the
parking lot-three bound for New York's John F. diffusion of culinary culture as tastes for sushi, and
Kennedy Airport, where their tuna will be airfreight- bluefin tuna, spread worldwide.
ed to Tokyo for sale the day after next.
Bluefin tuna may seem at first an unlikely case
GROWING APPETITES
study in globalization. But as the world rearranges
itself-around silicon chips, Starbucks coffee, or Tuna doesn't require much promotion among ~a~an-
sashimi-grade tuna-new channels for global flows of ese consumers. It is consistently Japan's most popular
capital and commodities link far-flung individuals seafood, and demand is high throughout the year.
and communities in unexpected new relationships. When the Federation of Japan Tuna' Fisheries Coop-
The tuna trade is a prime example of the globaliza- erative (known as Nikkatsuren) runs ad campaigns for
tion of a regional industry, with intense international tuna, they tend to be low-key and whimsical, rather
competition and thorny environmental regulations; like the "Got Milk?" advertising in the United States.