Lessons from Lake Malawi: Fisheries Governance in the Colonial Era

Discover the hidden history and complex legacies of colonial-era fisheries in Lake Malawi. This new pop-up exhibition explores how two distinct fisheries management regimes developed simultaneously in Lake Malawi in the mid-twentieth century: the lake-wide system imposed by British colonial authorities, and the community-based approach developed by Senior Chief Makanjira around Mbenji Island.

Pop-up Exhibition: 1 August to 12 October 2025

Through a detailed display including archival photographs and recorded interviews, visitors will voyage between the colonial government’s centralised, scientifically-driven regime and Senior Chief Makanjira’s community-based management system at Mbenji Island. The exhibition reveals how these competing approaches to fisheries knowledge—one imposed through colonial authority and scientific expertise, the other rooted in local leadership and ecological knowledge —created lasting legacies that continue to shape environmental governance today.

The exhibition will launch with a public event, supported by the Scotland-Malawi Partnership, on 14 August featuring a roundtable discussion and reception with members of the research team. Tickets for this event can be found here: Scotland Malawi Partnership Events

For more information, see: https://www.colonialfisheries.com

The Lessons from Lake Malawi project was supported by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council and Natural Environment Research Council “Hidden histories of environmental science: Acknowledging legacies of race, social injustice and exclusion to inform the future” programme [AH/W009099/1].