A rich ethnographic account of young West African fisherfolk navigating a precarious social and economic environment shaped by ecological crisis, war, and secrecy.

Jennifer Diggins is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University. Her ethnographic research focuses on fishing communities in coastal Sierra Leone, exploring how intimate social relationships have been shaped through histories of migration and economic change, and asks how fishermen and women struggle to navigate precarious livelihoods through contexts of extreme poverty, insecurity, and environmental decline.

List of illustrations; A note on translations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Context, history, methods; 3. Economic runaways; 4. Plantain island sirens; 5. Potato rope families; 6. Occult economies and hidden topographies; 7. Material words; 8. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.