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ABSTRACT
Along the Gabonese coast, native populations and migrant fisher communities live side by side and, together, build constantly changing life spaces. In the Nyanga region, past and current interactions between fishers from Benin, Senegal, Congo and Gabon (characterized by diverse rights regarding land, sea and lagoons, specific knowledge and know-how) conduct to particular cultural dynamics: loan dynamics, innovations and knowledge transfers between communities. Based on deep ethnographical fieldwork, this paper aims to: 1) describe how migrant and native fishers in Gabon share coastal places and adapt their ecological knowledge, environmental know-how and know-being in order to enhance their livelihoods; 2) and analyse how fishers’ migration in Africa is a key factor for societal changes.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Source: Sabinot (Citation2008); background map extracted from DEMAY, 1998. Grand Atlas Larousse, Larousse-Bordas, Paris.
2. Migrants from Benin and other countries live all along the Gabonese coastline. Those who fish are also Nigerians, Ghanaians, Togolese and Equatoguineans, but they are not displaced massively beyond Port-Gentil.
3. ISEE 2004.
4. Senegalese father and Gabonese Mother: they grow up in Gabon with a daily life integrating elements of Senegalese and Gabonese culture
5. Stories heard in Mayumba in 2005, and recently repeated in a Gabonews programme, tell that the first fisherman who came on reconnaissance from Pointe-Noire in 1846 was Ghanaian.
6. According to records of the DGPA (2008), out of 1772 registered foreign fishermen and owner-fishermen, only 94 were registered in the Nyanga province, spread over three departments, including Upper and Lower Banio, where the in-depth ethnographic study is focused.
7. Women in Mayumba also dive for oysters in the lagoon with Gabonese Vili women (Sabinot Citation2007a, Citation2020)
8. The residence permit is subject to a fee and its cost is proportional to the distance from the country of origin. A Senegalese will pay more than a Beninese who will pay more than a Nigerian. This process aims to bring foreign currency into Gabon and to control foreign activity in the country.
9. Practising fishing as a profession is an important condition for obtaining a residence permit. It is important to note that in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, Nigerian and Beninese communities account for three-quarters of the fishers. Many of them have returned to Gabon illegally and some are still in an irregular situation. The fact that they are full-time fishers has enabled some of them to obtain residence permits.
10. As well as a few Togolese individuals.
11. The young fishers of Mayumba, Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), 30 September 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0K5wGsVS9I; The origins of fishing in Mayumba, Gabonews, 5 May 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niwHYe1YhUQ
12. Tea leaves accompany the migration as well. Afterwards, the Senegalese get their supplies from their brother traders in Gabon.
13. While clothing marks the cultural identity of a community, there are also more and more Gabonese women today who buy outfits called ‘Beninese fashion boubou’.
14. 700 kg to two tonnes per boat when weather permits.
15. Decision No. 000358 of 13 April 2001 prohibiting fishing by foreigners in rivers and lakes in the Gabonese Republic / Decision No. 000431 of 21 May 2001 prohibiting fishing by foreigners in lagoons.
16. At sea opposite Mayumba there are nevertheless virulent conflicts of use between artisanal and industrial fishers because the latter frequently violate the decree which prohibits them from fishing within six or even three nautical miles of the coast (Decree No. 0062/PR/MEFPE of 10/01/94).
17. Chrysichtys ogooensi
18. Seven fish, whether ngodo or mbila, are equivalent to about 500 CFA francs.
19. Each Senegalese fisherman in Nkoka has four to seven one-kilometre-long nets to target the nzulu.
20. The fishpond is also a marker object of interactions between the communities of the Banio (Sabinot, Citation2007a).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Catherine Sabinot
Dr. Catherine Sabinot, PhD from the National Museum of Natural History (Paris), is a permanent researcher in environmental anthropology and ethnoecology at the Research Institute for Development – UMR Espace-Dev (IRD-UM-UR-UA-UG). She is based at the IRD Center in Noumea, New Caledonia. She has been working in anthropological research for 15 years. Adopting an anthropological and comparative approach (fieldworks in Africa, America, Indo-Pacific region), she studies the evolution of interactions between societies and their environment on islands and coastal areas. She has worked with migrant and native fishers in several countries in Africa (Gabon, Guinea, Senegal, Tanzania, Mozambique) and in Indian Ocean islands (Madagascar and Mayotte), as well as in Pacific Islands (Vanuatu, New-Caledonia, French Polynesia) and West Atlantic Islands and Coasts (Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, French Guyana and Suriname). Working in pluri-disciplinary teams, her research aims to describe the evolution of fisheries and fishers and to contribute to the reflection on the way populations acquire, adopt, transform and share knowledge, know-how and formal and informal norms.