Domestic economy and family survival strategy in Casamance

How are work activities in a family organized to ensure that subsistence needs are met? What is the place of women and children in this domestic economy? What strategies and tactics do individuals develop to get out of a situation of prevailing poverty? How can a source of income be created when unemployment persists in a given locality? These are the questions that this article will attempt to answer through the study and examination of the domestic economy and the survival strategies of families in Casamance in southern Senegal. The material mobilized in this article stems from a series of field surveys conducted in Casamance, between 2014 and 2018, with a cohort of 50 families. We conducted 70 interviews with families living in rural and urban areas. This series of surveys took place in several sites in Casamance (Ziguinchor, Kolda and Sedhiou). Our methodological approach was built on the establishment of a relationship of trust with our interviewees, which allowed us to conduct semi-structured interviews and observations and to collect a series of interviews from the families through an iterative approach and a search for empirical saturation.