Native and migrant fishers on the Gabonese coast: how to share places, resources, know-how and languages?

Abstract

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.