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- Convenors:
-
Brenda Chalfin
(University of Florida and Aarhus University)
Tarik Dahou (IRD)
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- Stream:
- Environment and Geography
- Location:
- David Hume, LG.11
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Going beyond the static couplet of state/society relations, this panel illustrates how African actors appropriate the 'blue economy' agenda and engage global maritime policies to disrupt and transform the governance of seas, oceans, and underwater resources across different spaces and scales.
Long Abstract:
As 'blue growth' gains increasing traction world-wide, oceans and seas are at the fore of global capitalism. Harboring unique resources and multi-directional connections, Africa is no exception. This panel probes the governance, organization, and interrelation of these extractive circuits, which are largely multi-national in scope, capital and technology-intensive, and transform natural resources into commercial values. While policy regarding maritime spaces and resources is generally studied as state-centered, and international organizations afforded decisive influence, the African cases explored here insist on a different line of inquiry. Namely, they reveal the profound impact of private actors - whether local activists, technical experts, ordinary citizens, off-shore workers and sojourners, or moneyed agents of domestic and transnational networks -- who play key roles in shaping flows of capital and commodities and transforming regulatory norms.
Disrupting the usual state/society dichotomies, the panel explores how differently positioned African actors appropriate and reshape global maritime policies to impact the governance of seas and oceans and their respective resource flows. Contributors will likewise map the territorial configuration of power driving 'blue growth' at different spaces and scales. Participants will address four key arenas of maritime governmental transformation: seaports, offshore extraction, security regimes and environmental regulation. Although from the perspective of integrated maritime governance, these fields are interwoven, they are subject to distinct policies and contradictions. Hence, panelists will both focus on discreet regulatory and maritime domains and analyze their interrelation in order to illuminate the complexity and interconnection of Africa's manifold blue regions and associated governing regimes.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Godfred Sowah Khartey (Xiamen University)
Paper short abstract:
The issue of ocean governance in Africa has become a worrying concern.The untapped economic potential of African oceans as well as challenges of marine environmental pollution has been a bane to blue growth. The Maritime Silk Road if adopted carefully might be able to help solve these problems.
Paper long abstract:
Modern debates about the rise of China, has brought into question its role in the global political- economic arena as well as its current role in the African region. This global rise of China has evermore been fueled and given a much-needed impetus through its 'Project of the Century' as opined by President Xi Jingping, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
This paper seeks to appraise the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), a part of the BRI and its impact in shaping the economic, security and environmental challenges that face the oceans and seas of Africa, using the Gulf of Guinea as a case study. Owing to the richness as well as challenges faced by countries bordered by the Gulf of Guinea, it has been argued that the MSR would help address such challenges and propel blue growth or what scholars call a blue economy.
Nonetheless, it is very crucial that in carrying out the goals of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, China must play a key role in genuinely helping to ensure global governance over the oceans and seas that have come under a wide range of challenges ranging from international territorial conflicts, IUU fishing, piracy, marine pollution, the incidence of micro plastics and many others.
The MSR might be that fulcrum to deliver a solid blue economy to the Gulf of Guinea.
Jon Schubert (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
How do actors in and around the Port of Lobito appropriate and disrupt overlapping and sedimented ideological formations and regulatory regimes of the maritime economy in a time of 'crisis'?
Paper long abstract:
As (self-defined) nodes of capitalism, ports are 'hyper-regulated' spaces, and their installations materialise multiple, sometimes contradictory regulatory regimes. They render concrete economic and power relations that are normally conceived of as delocalised, supranational, and abstract. The Port of Lobito, on the central coast of Angola, and its connected transport infrastructures, were a centrepiece of the government's oil-fuelled post-war reconstruction drive. Through oil-backed loans and with the help of international experts and construction companies it was modernised and expanded into a state-of-the-art installation, with the government harbouring ambitious plans to revive rail links into DRC and Zambia. Since the drop of crude oil prices in late 2014, however, the volume of goods coming through the port has dropped by 50-60%, with quays laying empty and cranes standing still. As the dream of development through globally connected economic growth is disrupted, this paper traces how actors in and around the Port of Lobito appropriate and disrupt overlapping and sedimented ideological formations and regulatory regimes of the maritime economy.
Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood (King's College London)
Paper short abstract:
African governments appear to have understood the need to ensure the optimum utilisation of their ocean's resources, and the significant benefits to be derived therefrom; this is evident in the increased interest they are taking in harnessing the potential of their blue economy.
Paper long abstract:
African governments appear to have understood the need to ensure the optimum utilisation of their ocean's resources, and the significant benefits to be derived therefrom; this is evident in the increased interest they are taking in harnessing the potential of their blue economy. In doing so, they equally recognise the significant adverse implications of unsustainable practices such as overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing attributed mainly to distant water fishing vessels on the marine ecosystem and the severe consequences for the food and economic security of their people and country. Despite ample evidence implicating these distant water fishing vessels from political entities such as the European Union and countries like China and Russia among others, the governments of select countries in the region are tending to focus their efforts on securitising small-scale fisheries which are already suffering from the impact of the activities of the said distant water fishing vessels. Using cases from Liberia and Ghana as illustrative West African examples, this paper answers a critical research question, how might we understand the impact of the securitisation of small-scale fisheries? It will argue that the securitisation of artisanal fishing while embracing distant water fishing nations despite the limited capacity to monitor their activities, is counterproductive and exacerbates both human and state insecurity in coastal communities and indeed undermines effort towards a sustainable African blue economy.
Gabriel Tati (University of the Western Cape)
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the extent to which entrepreneurial African immigrants in the artisanal fisheries degrade the coastal environment in the city of Pointe-Noire (Congo-Brazzaville). The results suggest pervasive destructive practices in the sustainability of terrestrial and marine resources.
Paper long abstract:
A consensus has emerged from past research that immigrants' sources-use and extraction strategies result in negative environmental impacts such as widespread resource depletion. Direct causality, however, cannot be clearly established. Building on previous works, this paper explores this issue by investigating immigrants involved in artisanal fisheries and their modes of incorporation of immigrants in space and in transactional markets. This is critical in understanding the ecological impact of space occupancy and fishing practices. The paper addresses the following questions: How do migrants' spatial behaviours ensure ecological sustainability of their space for livelihoods? Are their practices destructive in extracting marine resources? Are the patterns of resources extraction determined by the modes of incorporation into a particular sector of the fishing economy and the demands of the markets? Are destructive practices regulated and addressed in local governance?
The geographical context of the paper is the coastal city of Pointe-Noire in Congo-Brazzaville. A mix research methods approach was used to generate longitudinal data. The results suggest strong incorporation in the local fishing economy. It is however observed weak social ties with the local context. There are persistent behaviours in the destruction of the terrestrial environment as a result of expansionist behaviours in informal land occupancy. Associated with the occupancy, the beach and marine waters are polluted (plastics, human waste, metallic pollutants, household waste. The connections with Asian markets have given rise to destructive marine resources extraction (shark finning). In sum, the ecological system is exploited to extreme because of weaknesses in public regulation.