Methodological seminar – Rémi Jenvrin

On the 23^rd of June, Rémi Jenvrin gave a methodological Seminar at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ibadan. Rémi Jenvrin’s work aims at shedding light on the knowledge and practices that characterise the relationship between urban societies and tree vegetation in two West African cities, Osogbo and Porto Novo. These relationships are highly diverse, ranging from affective, memorial and ritual, to tourism, recreation, aesthetics, and ornamentation, to medicine and ecology. The interrelationships between this knowledge and practice about trees and urban forests also reflect a diversity of scales and players.

Thus, contrary to the way in which urbanity of this part of Africa is characterised by its road and architectural infrastructures, in which asphalt and concrete are the dominant materials (Choplin, 2020), Remi Jenvrin consider trees and urban forests to be an equally essential material for thinking about current urban realities, its actors and its scales.

Rémi Jenvrin studies two processes: heritage and its corollary, tourism. He chose to focus on three dimensions at the heart of the heritage and tourism of trees and forests in the two cities studied: ritual (sacred trees and forests linked to the Vodùn and Orisa cults), artistic (monumental works in Osogbo and artistic projects in traditional squares in Porto-Novo) and ecological (projects to conserve local species and the ecosystem services of urban vegetation). Backed by the ANR JCJC InfraPatri project, the thesis will therefore focus on the one hand, on the knowledge and everyday practices of different categories of city dwellers in relation to trees and forests in the city and, on the other hand, on the institutional heritage and tourism initiatives based on them.