Ulteriori informazioni
Sommario
List of illustrations; A note on translations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Context, history, methods; 3. Economic runaways; 4. Plantain island sirens; 5. Potato rope families; 6. Occult economies and hidden topographies; 7. Material words; 8. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Info autore
Jennifer Diggins is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University. Her ethnographic research focuses on fishing communities in coastal Sierra Leone, exploring how intimate social relationships have been shaped through histories of migration and economic change, and asks how fishermen and women struggle to navigate precarious livelihoods through contexts of extreme poverty, insecurity, and environmental decline.
Riassunto
This vivid ethnography, describing the precarious lives of fisher folk in post-war Sierra Leone, offers fresh perspectives on themes of gender, youth, gift exchange, and secrecy. Everyday life in this fragile frontier economy is shaped both by a global ecological crisis and a local history of war, slavery, and esoteric practice.
Testo aggiuntivo
'Jennifer Diggins's Coastal Sierra Leone is a brilliant, compelling, ethnographically rich account of the intersection of morality and economy in a busy fishing community. Beautifully written, the book offers riveting stories of everyday struggles to survive in a place of ecological depletion, state neglect, and uncertain economic and social change. Yet as much as Diggins's account evokes empathy for her interlocutors, Coastal Sierra Leone is equally noteworthy for the author's unflinching attention to the underbelly of social life in this maritime community. At once sensitive to people's hardships and attuned to the moral hazards of making a living and a life in such precarious circumstances, Diggins neither romanticizes nor pathologizes her subjects. I strongly recommend reading it all. I couldn't put it down.' Daniel Jordan Smith, American Ethnologist
