1. Work performed
a. Continuation of previous research and publication work
b. Three ethnographic fieldwork trips:
- Oct-Nov 2021: Kisangani, (Tshopo province, DRC): ethnographic research on baleinières' "armateurs" (owners) and the socio-economic impact of baleinières on the local economy.
- February 2022: in Kisangani and Basoko (Tshopo province): focus on boatbuilders and their craft, care and repair. Subsequent evaluation of materials.
- Jul-Aug 2022: Kisangani, Isangi, Tolaw, Yafira (Tshopo province, DR Congo): focus on baleinières' artisanal infrastructure. Subsequent evaluation of materials.
resulting in:
d. Four peer-reviewed publications
c. Nine workshop/conference papers and guest lectures
2. Main results:
- "Armateurs and 'real development'": Before becoming ship owners, most of baleinières' new owners were former itinerant traders in the local popular economy, who thus acquired experience in river navigation. The success of Kisangani's “transportants”, i.e. of bundle of actants combining baleinières and their owners in mutual dependence and conditioning, stems from a complex and intertwined interplay of circulations of materials, techniques, people, and know-how. The economic development achieved by baleinières occurs entirely without any public development policy and intervention. It thus qualifies as "real development" from below that is characterized by its impact rather than its public visibility. This development is manifested in a growing network of river transport that follows the needs of local populations, as well as in the gradual formation of a new group of entrepreneurs: the whaleboat owners (armateurs).
- With a view to better understand the challenges that baleinières and their operating actors face, the research has look at baleinières as sites of care and repair: the research has documented and analysed local efforts of restoration and replacement, both of the wooden body of the boat as well as of its propulsion system. It has become apparent that an entire sub-economy of recycling and repair is in the making, promising to improve the safety and the so far rather limited longevity of baleinières.
- Artisanal infrastructure: In search of the wider underlying causes of baleinières' unprecedented success, the research has uncovered that much of it relies on the interaction and skilful integration of mechanical, natural and muscular forces in the boats' riverine habitat: baleinière and their engines, the river and its current, as well as human bodies and their body techniques are skillfully entangled in a kinetic convergence of artisanal infrastructure, which renders the « hard » infrastructures inherited from the (post-)colonial past inadequate and obsolete.
- The frequent accidents of baleinières are in most cases cause by negligence rather than ignorance or poor maintenance.
