Ambra Zambernardi
Research Project
Sel-thon-corail : The Mediterranean Maritime Triad. An Anthropology Across the Mediterranean
Project Abstract
Since its establishment as a disciplinary field at the 1959 Burg Wartenstein conference, Mediterranean anthropology has been introspective, questioning its status within the broader social sciences and continuously examining the values and practices characterizing societies in this region. Numerous works have debated whether this geographic area can be defined as a cultural area, highlighting its homogeneities or differences.
The Mediterranean has been analyzed as a physical, human, and historical unit (Braudel, 1949), a cultural area (Arensberg, 1963), an area of intercultural communication (Davis, 1977), and a space of connectivity (Horden and Purcell, 2000). More recently, it has been viewed as a research laboratory on familial similarities and complementary differences (Albera, Blok, Bromberger, 2001; Albera & Tozy, 2005), an alternative to Euro-American Atlantic capitalism (Cassano & Zolo, 2007), a transnational constellation (Ben-Yehoyada, 2014), and a kaleidoscopic vision (Ben-Yehoyada & al., 2020)
Some research has defined a repertoire of foundational themes considered Mediterranean, such as the honor-shame system, familism and patronage, hospitality and the coexistence of monotheisms, folklore, and backwardness. Mediterranean anthropology has faced criticism for its foundations, often from “indigenous anthropologists,” accused of ethnocentrism, orientalism, exoticism, colonialism, racism, and sexism. After the 1960s and 1970s “Mediterraneanism,” the 1980s and 1990s “anti-Mediterraneanism,” and the cautious return to a postmodern Mediterranean in the 2000s, we acknowledge a succession of theories and counter-theories about the possibilities of anthropology in and of the Mediterranean.
The Place of the Sea and Its Inhabitants (Human and Non-Human)
Paradoxically, the sea has been the significant absence in Mediterranean anthropology over the past sixty years (Albera & Tozy, 2005). We have cultivated a decidedly hydrophobic anthropology of the Mediterranean (Driessen, 2001) focused on rural or urban communities (Driessen, 2002). Fishermen sporadically appear among the actors connecting its shores. However, the “civilization of tuna,” with its long trans-Mediterranean history, has attracted extraordinary mobility and circulation of fishermen, specialized workers, techniques, gestures, knowledge, heritage, and a vocabulary disseminated throughout the Mediterranean basin. Ultimately, a rehabilitation of the sea and its trades within Mediterranean anthropology is desirable, and this research aims to move in that direction (Zambernardi, 2020).
Mediterranean Maricultures for a Renewed Relationship with the Living
In her research project, Ambra Zambernardi proposes juxtaposing Fernand Braudel’s famous terrestrial triad of the Mediterranean (1977), WHEAT – VINE – OLIVE, with a maritime triad of SALT – TUNA – CORAL, three products that have predominantly marked the economic and social history of the Mediterranean. She aims to explore whether this trait (the widespread and often overlapping presence of tuna traps, salt pans, and coral activities along its coasts), common to many Mediterranean peoples, is a distinctive element of a certain “Mediterraneanity.” This research aims to test the theoretical and practical validity of a maritime triad, addressing questions such as: Can ecological contingencies generate shared cultural systems? Can these long-standing activities (tuna, coral, and salt) overlap in time and space? What can emerge from a digital cartographic overlay of these activities’ dislocation? Do the knowledge, practices, tools, and modes of thinking underlying these economic and social systems present comparable points? Is it conceivable to consider these three activities and their workers (“salinieri,” “tonnarotti,” and “corallari”) as carriers of a genuine culture of the sea (a mariculture), expressing specific ecological knowledge (LEK – Local Ecological Knowledge) and values? Can they be considered Mediterranean values? Finally, can this maritime triad aspire to a political instance, which she proposes to call Mediterraneanism, Mediterranean humanism (Zambernardi, 2020)?
More specifically, she aims to investigate a portion of the Mediterranean that Mediterranean men—and more rarely women—have experienced and shaped through their relationship with the sea, trying to uncover a “Mediterraneanity” in their knowledge, skills, and imaginaries related to these sea trades, dialoguing with anthropology, history, ecology, and blue humanities (Mentz, 2024) by proposing a maritime turn in anthropology across the Mediterranean.
Biography
Ambra Zambernardi is an Italian anthropologist and dancer. After earning a Master’s degree with honors in Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, she completed a PhD with honors in Anthropological Sciences in 2020, in a joint program between the Universities of Turin and Seville. In 2020, she became a lecturer for integrative teaching in Mediterranean Anthropology, and from 2021 onwards, she taught Gender and Kinship Anthropology at the University of Turin. From 2021 to 2023, she was a lecturer in Lineaments of Anthropology for Migration Studies at the University of Eastern Piedmont. During her academic training, she interned with the MAE/CRUI (Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Conference of Italian University Rectors) at the Italian Embassy in Amman, was a visiting student at the International University of Haifa, and interned with Erasmus+ at the Mediterranean House of Human Sciences (MMSH) at Aix-Marseille University.
After conducting field research in the Middle East on post-conflict forced migrations (Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Syria) and in the Mediterranean on fishing systems and communities (Italy, France, Spain), she was awarded a research fellowship by the Fondazione di Sardegna (2021-22), a post-doc mobility grant by ATLAS – Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme / Fondazione Luigi Einaudi (2024) as a visiting researcher at the TELEMMe Laboratory of Aix-Marseille University, and became a resident fellow holding the Iméra/Région Sud “Germaine Tillion – Tomorrow, the Mediterranean” chair at the Institute for Advanced Study of Aix-Marseille (2024-25).
Since 2014, her scientific and artistic research has been dedicated to the madragues for bluefin tuna fishing in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In the context of disseminating her research, she engages in a “heterographic” approach, seeking to present ethnographic data through means other than traditional writing: photography, dance, theater, drawing, music, sometimes involving external participants, with whom she initiates forms of co-creation and artistic experimentation. This artistic-scientific research has led, alongside the production of an illustrated thesis and scientific articles, to the ongoing creation of a photo-ethnographic monograph (Calar tonnara. Ethnography of Mediterranean Mariculture, expected in 2024), a photo exhibition (Calar tonnara. Active fishing between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 2022), a theatrical piece (*AlfabeTonnara. ‘To all the tunas we seek forgiveness’, 2017), a dance workshop (Calar tonnara. Studio #1, 2022), a lecture-performance (The Art of Tuna Fishing, 2021), a video narration (Tuna Fishing. Emilio Salgari, 2020), and a scientific “slam” (Calar tonnara. A culture of the sea, 2023).
Her interdisciplinary scientific research interests include maritime anthropology, anthropology and history of the Mediterranean, fishing systems and communities, marine ethology and biology, interspecies ethnography, marine ecology, and coastal/marine ecosystems. In 2024, she will appear as a scientist in the film Dolphins: Human Perspectives by the Pelagos Sanctuary / Port-Cros National Park. Since 2021, she has been a co-author, signatory, and member of the Mediterranean Rights Convention.
She has worked for a decade across photography, cinema, and videography as a researcher, director and production assistant, camerawoman, editor, sound engineer, and exhibition curator for various production companies, foundations, associations, and independent authors in Italy, the UK, Russia, Turkey, and Kuwait. Among her most significant collaborations are Magnum Photos, Fondazione Spinola-Banna per l’Arte, Olympic Broadcasting Services, and World Expo. She has directed documentaries, short films, and music videos, participated in several festivals in Italy, and exhibited her photographs in solo and group exhibitions at museums (MUCEM, Cittadella di Cagliari, MACC, MuT, CineTeatro Cavallera, Carloforte Tonnare).
She studied dance in Turin, Venice, and Aix-en-Provence, training in ballet (R.A.D. method), floor barre (Alain Astié method), postural Pilates, and continued practicing contemporary dance and dance-theater. Since 2013, she has worked as a dancer and performer for ballet companies, private companies, and participated in performances, festivals, and artistic or choreographic residencies. Since 2015, she has been teaching and leading dance workshops, and in 2017, she made her debut as a choreographer in a performance based on her ethnographic research. A former co-founding member of the quattroquarti collective and creator of personal projects au 5ème étage and Calar tonnara, she is co-author or performer of around twenty productions. Continuously learning, she experiences dance and live performance, as well as movement and constant displacement, as an infinite source of research and inspiration.
