Journalist Anna Badkhen has immersed herself in the lives of Afghan carpet weavers, Fulani cow herders in Mali, and other people often ignored or forgotten—especially in the Global North. Yet our lives are entwined with others’ across the continents, and in ways that we may not even realize. Consider, for example, the dire situation in Joal, Senegal—the subject of Badkhen’s latest book—where artisanal fishermen are facing the consequences of an ocean depleted by climate change and overfishing. This episode originally aired in 2018.

Go beyond the episode:

Anna Badkhen’s Fisherman’s Blues: A West African Community at Sea
“Magical Thinking in the Sahel,” an essay about gris-gris and good luck in the The New York Times
“The Secret Life of Boats,” a dispatch from Joal in Granta
A Voice of America video report on overfishing in Senegal
“Tackling illegal fishing in western Africa could create 300,000 jobs,” The Guardian reports
It’s not just West Africa: how territorial disputes have put the South China Sea’s fishery on the verge of collapse

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Kyle Peterson

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