Report
Period: 17 October - 10 November 2003. Country: Ethiopia, Senegal
  Purpose of the Visit
  Workshop in Ethiopia and On-Site Education in Senegal
  ICHIKAWA Mitsuo  (ASAFAS: Division of African Area Studies)
  Record of Activities
  10/17 (Fri)
  • Leave Osaka – Arrive in Paris
      10/18 (Sat)
  • Leave Paris – Arrive in Addis Ababa (via Rome)
    (on the 19th)
      10/20 (Mon) – 27 (Mon)
  • Participate in the workshop of the 21st Century COE Program held at Addis Ababa University, and study tour to Bahir Dahl and Gonder
      10/28 (Tue)
  • Leave Addis Ababa – Arrive in Paris (via Rome)
      10/29 (Wed)
  • Leave Paris – Arrive in Dakar
      10/30 (Thu) – 11/1 (Sat)
  • Collection of materials and preparation for visit to the students’ research sites at Dakar
      11/2 (Sun)
  • Leave Dakar – Arrive in Djifer
      11/3 (Mon)
  • Djifer to Falia and back to Djifer: Conduct research and on-site education concerning Serer fishing people in the mangrove area around Falia
      11/4 (Tue) – 11/7 (Fri)
  • Visit Djifer – Thies – Touba – Dara – Richard Toll – St. Louis:
    Carry out comparative study and on-site education concerning the interactive relationship between humans and vegetation
      11/8 (Sat) – 11/9 (Sun)
  • Dakar: Visit Museum of IFAN (Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire) to gather materials
      11/10 (Man)
  • Leave Dakar – Arrive at Paris (on November 11)
    After participating in an international symposium in Paris (with a different fund), return to Japan on November 18.

     

      Outcome and Progress Report
                The research and the on-site-education in Senegal involved a study on a fishing community near a mangrove forest reserve in the western coastal district, as well as a study on the interactive relationships between humans and vegetation in the Acacia savanna area in the southern part of the Sahel region.
              The research and studies on Africa of ASAFAS once focused on the former British colonies such as Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia in East Africa, but in recent years researches have been actively conducted in Francophone countries in West Africa such as Burkina Faso and Senegal. During this trip I visited the research sites of Masaaki HIRAI (Year of enrollment: 2001) and Hiraku USUI (Year of enrollment: 2002), both graduate students at ASAFAS, who are conducting research on the utilization of the environment and social changes of the different groups of the Serer, one of Senegal’s major ethnic groups, and discussed with them their problems and how to continue with their studies.
              HIRAI has been conducting a survey on historical changes in the woodland vegetation dominated by Acacia albida in the habitat of the Serer-Sin in the central part of Senegal. Though this area is arid, with annual precipitation of 400-600 mm, it has a high population density of several hundred persons per 1 km, thanks to the combination of cereal cultivation, mainly of pearl millet, with cattle farming. Moreover the villagers are said to have lived on the same site for more than 200 years. Considering that the capacity to support such a high population and stable farming lies in the vegetation dominated by Acacia albida, HIRAI has been investigating the process of development of this vegetation and its recent changes. During this trip, we toured areas where there is a particularly high distribution of this vegetation to study the human-vegetation interaction. We also conducted comparative research with the surrounding area where the
    vegetation is dominated by Acacia tortilis.
              USUI has just begun a survey in a fishing community of Serer-Niominka, who live in the coastal mangrove area, and intends to carry out research on the relationship between coastal fishing and mangrove forests, as well as the current status and development of “migrant fishing” to remote areas, which has become common in recent years. During this trip, we visited fishing communities around USUI’s survey area and explored ways to gain a comprehensive understanding of environmental changes in mangrove forests and waters and in coastal fishing caused by aridification and development projects, as well as the great increase in migrant fishing to remote areas.

     

      Future Tasks
                Because the recent visit to Senegal was very short, I had to focus on the areas where our graduate students are doing research, and keep the discussions with related institutions to a minimum. One of these institutions is the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Senegal, which has a long history of cultural and social studies of West Africa, but due to the limited time I could only visit its museum. Academic exchanges with IFAN remain an issue for the future.

     

     
    Hirai and Usui conduct research with a woman collecting shellfish in the shallow water of the mangrove area   Hirai investigates the relationships between man, livestock and vegetation in the Acacia wooded grassland in northern Senegal
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