Plantain Island Sirens: Tales of Seduction and Entrapment from Coastal Sierra Leone
Tuesday 1 May 15:00 until 17:00
Arts C333
Speaker: Jenny Diggins, Oxford Brookes University
Part of the series: Anthropology Department and Sussex Africa Centre Events Spring Term 2018
Joint seminar: Department of Anthropology and Sussex Africa Centre
Based on 18 months’ ethnographic research in coastal Sierra Leone, this paper explores the economic negotiations between fishermen and the women who vie to buy their catch. As boats traverse the Yawri Bay in search of fertile waters, captains often swap cautionary tales about the predatory seductresses in neighbouring towns, who are described ensnaring guileless men into binding economic ties. In the context of a deepening ecological crisis, this trope reflects the escalating tensions of the gendered relationships that drive the marine economy. These fables of entrapment also shed light on a broader set of moral anxieties in coastal communities, where many people express a deep preoccupation with the importance, but also the fragility, of personal ‘freedom’.
All welcome.
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Anthropology Department Seminar Series, Spring Term 2018 - revised
By: Martin Wingfield
Last updated: Friday, 22 November 2019