by Fatou H. Jobe
This paper examines how large-scale fishmeal processing impacts women’s work in The Gambia. Fishmeal factories use bonga (Ethmalosa fimbriata), a staple fish inThe Gambia, to produce fishmeal for the global aquaculture industry.The Gambian government yearns for FDI in fishmeal factories to industrialise the fisheries sector, increase fisheries contribution to GDP and ultimately achieve sustainable development through South-South Cooperation with Chinese and Mauritanian capital. However, coastal communities, especially women who live and work within the vicinity of three relatively new Chinese-Mauritanian facto- ries, have been protesting the operations of the factories since 2017. Communities complain about livelihood dispossessions such as the displacement and disruption of women’s work, food insecurity, as well as environmental and health concerns engendered by the factories. Using ethnographic methods and ecofeminist as well as feminist political ecology approaches, I argue that the operations of the fishmeal factories, which are underpinned by capitalist, patriarchal logic, disrupt women’s work as gardeners and fish vendors. Consequently, instead of promoting sustainable development, fishmeal processing undermines it.
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03.FA_April-2023_Volume-4-Issue-1_Fishmeal-Production-and-the-Dispossession-of-Women-in-The-Gambia