‘Climate Change and Cultural Change: The Unmaking of
Maritime Fishing Traditions in the Gulf of Guinea’
By Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Harvard University

Date: Tuesday 27 May 2025 at 5pm
Venue: Queen’s Lecture Theatre, Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Maritime fishing communities have a reputation for being conservative in their traditions.
They often stress that fishing is not just a livelihood but a way of life. Maritime fishing is
enmeshed in complex beliefs and practices, and ritual observations regulate seafishing. Fishermen have a reverence for the sea, a realm that is both natural and
supernatural. In our field work in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria in July 2023 and May
2024, as part of a Climate Adaptation Project in the Gulf of Guinea, we encountered coastal
communities caught amid profound social changes. Sea-level rise, coastal erosion, ocean
warming, the predation of Chinese trawlers, and artisanal overfishing had depleted stocks of
pelagic fish that coastal fishing communities are dependent on. I examine how climate
change and responses to declining fish stocks have encouraged changing traditions among
fishing communities, aware that environmental change promotes cultural change.

This event is free and open to all and will be followed by a drinks reception

The Global Humanities Initiative embedded at the School of Arts and Humanities is delighted to invite you to join us for an exciting conversation with Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A Museum in London, Historian, journalist and former Labour MP.

 This session is taking place as part of the GH Network’s second summer forum since its founding in 2020, and will be held at the “McCrum Lecture Centre”, on Wednesday 25 June 2025 from 5:30pm. 

The Global Humanities Initiative is a major project for the School and the University, and we hope you will consider joining us for this important day in its further development.