Discoveries: Sacred Rice: Environmental Change and Structural Uncertainty in Rural West Africa

Starts:
7:00 pm on Thursday, May 7, 2015
URL:
https://secure-alumni.bu.edu/olc/pub/BUAR/event/showEventForm.jsp?form_id=177137
Register:
https://secure-alumni.bu.edu/olc/pub/BUAR/event/showEventForm.jsp?form_id=177137
Location:
BU Hillel House, 213 Bay State Road
Diola villagers in Guinea Bissau, West Africa, often told Professor Joanna Davidson, “We used to be able to do this,” referring to the complex technical, social, and ritual system through which they produce, consume, and revere rice. “Now we cannot.” On the frontlines of global climate change, rural Diola are no longer able to maintain a livelihood that has defined them for centuries. This Discoveries lecture explores how Diola rice farmers in Guinea-Bissau are responding to a range of environmental changes that are challenging them to reinvent themselves as a people. Based on long-term ethnographic research, Davidson will discuss how a desiccating climate reaches into not just the livelihoods, but the very life-ways, rhythms, ideals, and ideologies of an African people.