FORAGENCY · Foraging, Fishing and Hunting as Agency in Colonial Central Africa (c. 1885 - c. 1960)

FORAGENCY offers a new take on indigenous agency in colonial Central Africa. It will study how local communities managed to counter, alleviate and/or minimize their encroachment by outside forces through the maintenance and adaptation of pre-existing uses of the environment. Inhabitants of Central Africa indeed mobilised foraging, fishing and hunting to avoid wage labour, cultural suppression and economic dependency in several ways. First, consuming, transforming and selling foraged or hunted products constituted sources of income outside of the networks of colonial capitalism. Second, these practices necessitated the maintenance and diffusion of knowledge fostered within vernacular social structures, which ran contrary to the colonial “civilizing mission”. Third, by trading and consuming such products, local communities circumvented the colonial market economy. The project addresses four questions: [1] Which techniques are mobilised for hunting, fishing and foraging? [2] Which strategies are used to trade and consume hunted and foraged products against colonial laws and values? [3] How are economic structures such as marketplaces and money mobilised outside of colonial capitalism? [4] Which knowledge is necessary to hunt, forage and transform natural products? They will be answered through four thematic sub-studies: on intoxicating substances; on hunted and foraged foodstuffs; on curative uses of nature; and on vernacular environmental agency. Each sub-study will consider the ecological interactions between four colonial cities and their hinterland: Léopoldville, Brazzaville, Stanleyville and Usumbura.FORAGENCY will combine archival data, material culture, oral testimonies and participatory observation. It will lead to the development of a new conceptual framework on indigenous ecologies, at the crossroads of decolonial and posthumanist studies, which will open new perspectives on the history of vernacular responses to colonialism and capitalism.