Ambra Zambernardi

Ambra Zambernardi is an Italian anthropologist and dancer. She holds a PhD in Anthropological Sciences through an international co-tutorship between the Universities of Turin and Seville. She is a resident researcher holding the IMéRA / Région Sud chair "Germaine Tillion – Tomorrow, the Mediterranean" at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Aix-Marseille University (2024-25) and a lecturer in integrative teaching on Gender and Kinship Anthropology at the University of Turin.

Since 2014, her scientific and artistic research has been dedicated to madragues for bluefin tuna fishing in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Her interdisciplinary research interests notably include maritime anthropology, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ethnography and history, fishing systems and communities, marine ethology and biology, interspecies ethnography, marine ecology, and coastal/marine/littoral ecosystems.

The project

Title: Salt-Tuna-Coral: The Mediterranean Maritime Triad

This research project lies at the intersection of maritime anthropology as a thematic field and Mediterranean anthropology as a geographical area. Ambra Zambernardi proposes juxtaposing the well-known Mediterranean terrestrial triad—conceived by historian Fernand Braudel (1977) as Wheat - Vine - Olive—with a maritime triad: Salt - Tuna - Coral. These three products, though not exclusively, have played a predominant role in shaping the economic and social history of the Mediterranean Sea.

She seeks to explore the possibility that the widespread and often overlapping presence of madragues, salt pans, and coral harvesting activities along the Mediterranean coastlines—shared by numerous Mediterranean peoples—constitutes a distinctive feature of a certain "Mediterraneanness." Paradoxically, the sea has often been the great absentee in Mediterranean anthropology, which has been described as "hydrophobic" and primarily focused on rural or urban communities.

Can these three activities and their workers (salinieri, tonnarotti, and corallari) be considered bearers of an authentic maritime culture (a "mariculture"), expressing specific ecological knowledge (LEK - Local Ecological Knowledge) and ecological values? Can they, and if so, how, be regarded as Mediterranean values? Finally, could this maritime triad even aspire to a political dimension—which she proposes to call "Mediterraneanism," a Mediterranean post-humanism?

This topic offers a basis for reflection on shifting from an anthropology in the Mediterranean to an anthropology of the Mediterranean, and ultimately toward an anthropology through the Mediterranean—nuances that express and suggest a (hydro)dynamic shift. Ultimately, she advocates for a maritime turn, a reclamation of the sea, its professions, and its inhabitants (both human and non-human) within the anthropology of the Mediterranean.

Hosting institution: TELEMMe Laboratory – Time, Spaces, Languages, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, at the MMSH – Mediterranean House of Human Sciences, Aix-Marseille University / CNRS, Aix-en-Provence.

Selective Bibliography

• 2025 – Zambernardi A., Calar tonnara. Ethnographic-based Artistic Narratives Around Tuna Fishing in the Med Sea, in Bessette J. & Cohen M. (eds.), Colloquy - Towards a Blue Art History, Arcade - Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University.
• 2024 – Florido Del Corral D. & Zambernardi A., La culturaleza del atún rojo en el marco mediterráneo de las almadrabas, in Cruzada S.-M. & González-Abrisketa O. (eds.), Animales y Antropología. Etnografías más que humanas en España, Biblioteca de Antropología del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid [ISBN: 978-84-00-11299-8].
• 2024 – Zambernardi A., La madrague ou la pêche au thon. Le grand théâtre de la mer au XVIIIe siècle, in Changeux T., Faget D., Tribot A.-S. (eds.), Merveilles aquatiques. L’art de représenter le vivant, éditions MkF, Paris [ISBN: 978-2-493458-01-8].