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 even aspire to a political body – which she proposes to call mediterranesimo, Mediterranean post-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 completing a Master’s degree with honours in Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, in 2020 she obtained a Doctorate with honours in Anthropological Sciences, under international co-supervision at the Universities of Turin and Seville. In 2020, she became a lecturer in the integrative teaching of Mediterranean Anthropology and, from 2021, in the Anthropology of Gender and Kinship at the University of Turin. From 2021 to 2023 she was a lecturer in Lineaments of Anthropology for the Study of Migration at the University of Piemonte Orientale. During her academic training, she was a MAE / CRUI (Ministero degli Affari Esteri / Conferenza dei Rettori delle Università Italiane) intern at the Italian Embassy in Amman, a visiting student at Haifa International University and an Erasmus+ intern at the MMSH – Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme at Aix Marseille Université. After fieldwork in the Middle East on post-conflict forced migration (Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Syria) and in the Mediterranean on fishing systems and communities (Italy, France, Spain), she was awarded a research grant by the Fondazione di Sardegna (2021-22), an ATLAS – Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme / Fondazione Luigi Einaudi post-doc mobility grant (2024) as a visiting researcher at the TELEMMe Laboratory at Aix Marseille Université and became a resident fellow of the Iméra/Région Sud chair ‘Germaine Tillion – Demain, la Méditerranée’ at the Institut d’Études Avancées d’Aix-Marseille (2024-25).
Since 2014, her scientific and artistic research has focused on the tuna traps used to catch bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. As part of the dissemination of her research, she is engaged in a ‘heterographic’ attempt, see the restitution of ethnographic data by means other than classical writing: photography, dance, theatre, drawing, music, sometimes also 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 production of: a photo-ethnographic monograph (Calar tonnara. Etnografia di una maricultura mediterranea, due in 2025), a permanent photo exhibition (Calar tonnara. La pesca in attività fra Mediterraneo e Atlantico, 2022), a play (AlfabeTonnara. ‘A tutti li tunni circàmu pirdònu’, 2017), a dance workshop (Calar tonnara. Studio #1, 2022), a conference-show (L’arte della pesca al tonno, 2021), a narrative-video (La pesca dei tonni. Emilio Salgari, 2020), a scientific ‘slam’ (Calar tonnara. Una cultura del mare, 2023).
Her interdisciplinary scientific research interests include maritime anthropology, the anthropology and history of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, fishing systems and communities, marine ethology and biology, interspecies ethnography, marine ecology and marine/coastal/coastal ecosystems. In 2024 she took part as a scientist in the documentary film Dauphins: regards d’humains by the Pelagos Sanctuary / Parc National de Port-Cros, which won the 2024 Environment Prize at the Galathea International Marine Festival. In 2024 she also became: a member of the BACK3M interdisciplinary scientific research group – Back to the Mediterranean Monachus monachus, partnership agreement 2024-27 Parc National de Port Cros / Aix Marseille Université (TELEMMe) / CNRS; a member of the TRANSITIONS SENSIBLES research-creation collective at Iméra and in 2025 she was invited to join the TRANSPLANTATIONS CONCEPTUELLES – La recherche-création en océans collective (Iméra and LAP (CNRS/EHESS)). Since 2021, it has been a co-author, signatory and member of the Convention of Mediterranean Rights.
She has worked for a decade in photography, film and videography as a researcher, director and production assistant, cameraman, editor, sound recordist and exhibition curator for several production companies, foundations, associations and independent authors in Italy, the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey and Kuwait. Among her most important collaborations: Magnum Photos, Fondazione Spinola-Banna per l’Arte, Olympic Broadcasting Services, World Expo. Ella has made documentaries, short films and video clips, taking part in several festivals in Italy and presenting 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 using the R.A.D. method, barre à terre using the Alain Astié method, postural Pilates and continuing to practice contemporary dance and dance theatre. Since 2013, she has worked as a dancer and performer for corps de ballet, companies and private individuals, taking part in shows, 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 show based on her ethnographic research. A former co-founding member of the quattroquarti collective and creator of the personal projects au 5ème étage and Calar tonnara, in 2024 she was chosen as a dancer-performer by choreographer Lydia Carrillo to join the contemporary dance company DANSE’AMU: between these creations the pieces ‘Not My Responsibility’ and ‘Ecos d’Ascension’. As part of her ongoing training, she sees dance and live performance, as well as movement and continuous displacement, as an infinite source of research and inspiration.
