Professor of History Benoît Henriet is investigating the environmental history of colonial Central Africa through the FORAGENCY project. In 2022, he was awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant of €1.5 million for this research. Now, he has also been appointed as the holder of the Casterman-Hamers Chair.
How did you come to research foraging, fishing and hunting in colonial Central Africa?
‘As a historian, I focus on colonialism in Central Africa. In the past, I mainly studied cultural and socio-economic history, my focus was mainly on humans. However, more and more historians are exploring how animals, landscapes and plants can play a role in historical dynamics. These perspectives can be very enriching. I decided to use this perspective to study the history of colonial Central Africa, in this field the perspective was still relatively new.’
"In those days, if you could hunt for your own food supply, it meant, for example, that you were less dependent on colonial wage labour to earn a living"
Is that a popular approach in contemporary historiography?
‘Exploring ‘beyond humans’ is becoming increasingly important in the human and social sciences. Environmental history has been around for about 60 years, but looking at history in a less anthropocentric way has only been common in the last 10 to 15 years. Anthropologists have taken the lead in this, now more and more historians are also starting to appropriate this perspective.’
Your research includes how foraging, fishing and hunting served as a form of resistance to colonial structures for indigenous people. Can you illustrate that briefly?
‘Resistance is perhaps too generalising; it was also about easing or circumventing the power grab of colonial actors. In those days, if you could hunt for your own food supply, for example, it meant that you were less dependent on colonial wage labour to earn a living. In other words, you could escape forced involvement in colonial capitalism. Moreover, that hunting, or foraging, also required you to master certain techniques and skills that were passed down from generation to generation. That lore escaped colonial control. Other times, then, foraging did not match colonial tastes. Take the trading of caterpillars for food, that custom too fell outside the framework of what the colonials controlled. In all these ways, something of a distinct culture could be preserved.’
"We probe for memories of our own childhood but also what our witnesses learned from their parents and grandparents"
Benoît Henriet
You are studying those practices in four cities, Kisangani, Bujumbura, Brazzaville and Kinshasa. How were they chosen?
‘Those cities and the areas around them are part of different ecosystems and biotopes in equatorial Africa. This allows us to study what impact a particular environment had on the form colonisation took on the terrain. In addition, these cities were also divided between different colonial structures and empires. Kinshasa and Brazzaville are not far from each other, but the Congo River separating them also formed the boundary between Belgian and French colonial influence. Kisangani was in the middle of the rainforest, while Bujumbura was in turn a former outpost of German East Africa and subsequently also the capital of the mandate area of Rwanda and Burundi (then Ruanda-Urundi). In short, different ecosystems and different political constructions. In addition, the choice of cities also has to do with the fact that urban areas are better archived and therefore more data are available to conduct the research.’
Besides archival research, you also do field research, how do you approach that?
‘The officials and missionaries who documented the colonial past back then often did not consider the subjects we study today to be important. As a result, info is sometimes scarce. Through interviews, we try to gather additional information. We sound out memories of our own childhood but also what our witnesses learned from their parents and grandparents. We also have two anthropologists on our team. They stay in the field for longer periods of time. So we really try to get embedded in local communities. Because the cultural divide does sometimes come into play. We are not only foreigners who do not know simple things like ‘what did they eat there eighty years ago’ by default, there is also a socio-economic difference between us and our interlocutors. That complicates conversations. Fortunately, we have very fine collaborations with universities yonder. For Burundi, for instance, the team's historians have finished data collection and it has actually gone very smoothly. Professors from the Université du Burundi put us in touch with the people we wanted to interview and played a crucial role as mediators. Without that close cooperation, we could not have done this research.’
"Locusts caused famines in Burundi in the interwar period and a lot of labour was needed to alleviate their impact"
It is currently unsafe to travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo anymore. Do you have access to the archives to continue the research?
‘Indeed, that's right. The fact that we can no longer go on site is hugely regrettable. Although we regret the situation especially for the people living there. For our project, there is no problem for archival research. The bulk of the colonial archives were returned to Europe after the independence of the Central African colonies. So for us, the archives are accessible, which is not the case for our African colleagues. For them, moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get visas. That means they are often unable to conduct research on their own country and culture.’
You have been working with FORAGENCY for several years. Is there any finding you can already share?
‘There are a few, but I myself am currently writing a paper on the locust plagues in Burundi during the interwar period. These were a huge problem, both for the local population and the colonial administration. They caused famines and a lot of labour was needed to alleviate their impact. For me, it shows the enormous influence that non-humans, in this case locusts, can have on historical dynamics in a society. It reinforces the idea that non-humans too, even without consciousness, have a form of agency in history.’
"By bringing non-people within the historical narrative, I hope to provide enrichment and nuance, and contribute to greater social awareness around environment"
Do you expect your research to have an impact on existing narratives around colonialism or on how we deal with the environment?
‘I do hope to provide enrichment and nuance by bringing more actors, namely non-humans, into the narrative. And as for the impact for today, more attention to the past of ecology may in time do a small bit to raise societal awareness about the importance of the environment.’
Finally, how important is this chair to you?
‘For an ambitious research project like FORAGENCY, I think it is very important. It means we can continue working in close cooperation with CrossTalks and with artist Gosie Vervloesem to develop an exhibition and a series of lectures, workshops and film screenings. In this way, we can also appeal to artists and audiences who at first glance have little interest in colonialism and Central Africa, but have a stake in foraging in the broadest sense.’
Bio Henriet Benoît
Since 2018, Benoît Henriet has been a professor of history at VUB. He studies history from the bottom up, with a particular focus on the micro-histories of (post-)colonial Central Africa. Henriet is the principal investigator of FORAGENCY. For this research project on ‘foraging, colonialism and agency beyond humans in colonial Central Africa’, he was awarded a €1.5 million ERC Starting Grant. Since 2025, he is the new chair holder Casterman-Hamers.
