The contradiction of south-south sustainable development in Chinese-Mauritanian fishmeal factories and environmental violence in the Gambia
Aquaculture and its inputs such as fishmeal have been promoted as sustainable development alternatives to wild-caught fisheries. In particular, high returns on investments are also associated with fishmeal processing. Subsequently, many governments and development practitioners, especially in the global South, push discourses that target increased investments in this industry using South-South Cooperation discourses. In The Gambia, factories target bonga fish as a raw material to produce fishmeal as a feed input for the global aquaculture industry. However, there are negative ramifications such as environmental degradation, health and food insecurity concerns linked to the growth of this industry in West Africa. Specifically, three coastal communities in The Gambia who live and work within the vicinity of three Chinese-Mauritanian fishmeal factories have been protesting the operations of these plants in The Gambia. This thesis explores the contradiction of the sustainable development and South-South Cooperation discourses epitomized in fishmeal investments in The Gambia and how counter narratives emerge from coastal communities who protest and challenge hegemonic discourses about the sustainability of fishmeal factories. Drawing on multiple qualitative research methods in all three communities and relevant government offices, I analyze how Chinese capital through fishmeal investments fits into The Gambian government’s visions of sustainable development and the ensuing socio-economic and environmental tradeoffs of fishmeal production in coastal Gambia. I find that fishmeal investments and production targets a low-value critical resource, bonga, and transforms it into a high-value product for aquaculture. The industry also creates conflicts over access to and management of local resources that result in contradictory perceptions of the sustainability of fishmeal production between state actors and local communities. As state actors view fishmeal production as a source of south-south sustainable development, local communities link the factories to food insecurity, environmental degradation and violence. Drawing upon the South-South, sustainable development, and political ecology literatures and informed by fieldwork in The Gambia, this study informs local and global policies regarding fishmeal and aquaculture industries.
Aquaculture and Fishmeal Production, Hegemony and counter-hegemonic resistance, Sustainable Development, South-South Cooperation, China-Africa Relation, Natural Resource Conflict, Environmental Violence
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign