The tuna war : a contested natural resource

Abstract

My fieldwork experience ran ln two distinct phases: one between May and the end of June 2001, during the tuna fishing season; the next phase started in late October till mid-December, during which time the tuna within the holding pens were killed and sold to the foreign buyers. Between May and June the foreign fishermen were based in Malta, and through Chus and Jure I got the occasion of talking to various players in the drama that was unfolding during that time. I was given the sound advice by one friend who works with the Authorities concerned not to go and talk to the Maltese fishermen or the Italians at the time, for that matter, and also not to get involved in the politics of things. If I had to go about asking invasive questions at that particular time, considering there were people who were risking their livelihood, large sums of money that would either make them rich or break them, I might have risked end up in hospital, or worse. He had even heard rumours of one such incident, a tactic used by the Italian Mafia to instil fear through the manipulation of hearsay and creating myths around the shady deeds that they commit (see Blok, 1988; Gambetta, 1993).