Some of our research have been published in peer-reviewed journals. They investigate the lived experiences of local fishers in Senegal and Senegalese migrants using primary data from fishers and migrants.
Migration and the right to survival: An empirical study of three fishing communities in Senegal
Allwell Uwazuruike
Journal of Rural Studies, 2023.
Abstract
Each year, thousands of Senegalese migrants brave the perils of the oceans in tiny canoes bound for Europe and the Canary Islands. In many cases, these migrants are local fishers who, owing to the depletion of the oceans, leave the country in search of greener pastures abroad. Many die en route from cold, starvation, and drowning. This empirical study seeks to make an original contribution to the literature by interrogating the lived experiences of local fishers in Senegal vis-à-vis dwindling fish stock largely occasioned by the activities of industrial fishing fleets. Semi-structured interviews were held with local fishers in the Senegalese coastal villages of Bargny, Saint-Louis, and Thiaroye with a view to developing grassroots perspectives on issues surrounding quality of life, survival, access to food, and migration within the context of declining small-scale fishing in Senegal. These perspectives are tested against thematic socioeconomic human rights such as the right to food, the right to work, and the right to free disposal of natural resources.
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Displacement at seascapes: Senegalese fishermen in between state power and foreign fleets
Fazila Bhimji, Allwell Uwazuruike & Mamadou Ba
Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 2022.
Abstract
Through semi-structured interviews with Senegalese fishermen, this article examines their displacement following the depletion of fishing stocks in Senegalese waters owing to the activities of European and Asian industrial fleets over the last two decades. While there has been some recognition in scholarship that extractivism leads to dire precarity and displacement within local populations, it has not been demonstrated how exploitations at sea are dependent on the displacement of the indigenous people for corporate gains. Thus, this article conceptualizes displacement of local Senegalese fishermen as the product of an active, arguably deliberate process, solely motivated by corporate gains to the detriment of their communal and human life. Furthermore, the article shows that displacement can take on multiple forms such as economic and temporal as well as physical movement. Data is drawn from eighteen semi-structured interviews with fishers from three fishing villages.