Browsing by Author "Green, Lesley"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 36
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    A sea of contested evidence: Disputes over coastal pollution in Hout Bay, Cape Town, South Africa
    (2022) Beukes, Amy; Green, Lesley; Petrik, Leslie
    The City of Cape Town's (CoCT) wastewater management system discharges effluent from households, industries and other sources into the Atlantic Ocean through deep-water marine outfalls in Green Point, Camps Bay and Hout Bay. At total capacity, these three outfalls discharge 55.3 megalitres (Ml) into marine receiving environments daily. With minimal pre-treatment that amounts to screening and sieving, this results in microbial and chemical pollution of the sea (including chemicals of emerging concern), marine organisms, recreational beaches, and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). This research focuses on contestations over evidence of that pollution in Hout Bay. The study documents the work of independent scientists seeking to provide evidence of coastal pollution obtained via microbial and chemical analyses of water (coastal and inland) and marine organisms (Mytilus galloprovincialis) samples. It also presents accounts of pollution obtained via ethnographic research with local residents, fishers, frequent water users and river activists who have observed and experienced poor coastal water quality. However, the form of evidence that is considered and informs decision-making processes by the CoCT has consistently sought to invalidate these forms of evidence, from both independent scientists and the public. Debates around knowledge of water and contests over evidence that highlight the entanglements of science, politics, and ways of knowing make visible a consistent pattern in coastal water-quality governance by the City, which results in inaction regarding the ever-growing issue of coastal pollution in Cape Town.
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    Above the surface, beneath the waves : contesting ecologies and generating knowledge conversations in Lamberts Bay
    (2011) Rogerson, Jennifer J M; Green, Lesley; Jarre, Astrid
    Based on fieldwork conducted over two months in 2010 in Lamberts Bay on the west coast of South Africa where the cold Benguela Currrent asserts its presence in water and wind, this dissertation aims to describe the ways that people come to know fish and the sea differently.
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    The anti-frackers: an ethnographic account of the South African fracking debate
    (2015) Van der Merwe, Lawrence; Green, Lesley
    This paper details an intermittent six months of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and participant observation carried out between September 2014 - March 2015, among members of the Treasure the Karoo Action Group and three other South Africans labeled "anti-frackers" and/or "environmentalists": a filmmaker, an entrepreneur, and an attorney. Drawing from analysis of literature, news and multimedia published outside the period of engaged research, the paper explores the contested process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) from the perspective of those who work to ensure that this technique of shale gas extraction will not be allowed, or will be proven unnecessary, in South Africa. The dissertation details the author's attempts to understand how the binary of "pro"/"anti" is used in the ongoing fracking "debate", and contrasts this with the work of those who have sought to craft positions that stand outside of the prevailing polemic. Tracing the stakes and interests involved in the potential for the use and sale of shale gas through a series of expeditions into the Karoo, the thesis seeks to problematize the idea that there is a fracking "debate" at hand between two collective fronts: the so-called "pro-frackers" and their opponents the "anti-frackers". In the Latourian sense of the term the dissertation critiques the construction of these two 'phantom publics', presenting a series of nuanced personal profiles in a call for a new appreciation of the diverse human, financial and natural forces at play in this currently unfolding scenario.
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    At the interface : marine compliance inspectors at work in the Western Cape
    (2014) Norton, Marieke; Green, Lesley; Jarre, Astrid
    The Western Cape fisheries are heavily contested. Primary concerns in the contestations are over access to marine resources, which have been regulated through the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998. At the centre of these conflicts, is the figure of the marine compliance inspector, whose task is to enforce the state’s version of nature onto the collective of resource users. This thesis, based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork alongside inspectors of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: Fisheries Branch in the Western Cape, explores the everyday human interactions on which the implementation of marine resource law depends. Exploring interactions between inspectors and resource users, the dissertation seeks to contribute to the task of reimagining fisheries governance. Drawing on ethnographic material deriving from participation in inspection duties; observations of fishing behaviour; conversations with inspectors, resource user and marine resource management officials; and analysis of texts such as relevant legislation and job descriptions, I argue that the issue of non-compliance in marine fisheries in the Western Cape can only be partially understood by the framework offered in extant South African compliance scholarship, which has focused largely on the motivations of resource extractors, or the formulation of law and policy. Given that compliance functions are part of the wider social spectrum of contestation and that the compliance inspectors are the interface between the government of South Africa and its fishing citizens, the study explores the real effects of state-citizen-nature contestations on environmental governance, and presents evidence in support of an argument that the design of the job of marine compliance inspector itself needs to be re-conceived. While compliance is a central feature of fisheries management, the performance of its personnel is taken for granted as the simple implementation of institutional policy, in a number of ways. Efforts to address conflicts will fall short of the goal of providing solutions if the assumptions about nature and humanity that current marine resource legislation embodies are not questioned, and this will exacerbate existing suffering in the ecology of relations between state, science, public and marine species.
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    Being San' in Platfontein: Poverty, landscape, development and cultural heritage
    (2007) Soskolne, Talia; Green, Lesley
    As people are relocated, dispossessed of land, or experience the altered landscapes of modernity, so their way of life, values, beliefs and understandings are transformed. For the !Kun and Khwe people living on Platfontein this has been an ongoing process. Platfontein, a dry, flat piece of land near Kimberly in the Northern Cape, was purchased for the Kun and Khwe through the provision of a government grant in 1997. They took permanent residence there in government-built housing in December 2003. Prior to this they had had numerous experiences of relocation and strife, through a long-term involvement with the SADF that brought them from the Omega army base in Namibia, to a time of uncertainty in the tent town of Schmitsdrift, to their current settlement on Platfontein. The dry barren landscape of Platfontein suggests a very different way of life from that of hunter-gathering in Angola and Namibia. In the semi-urban context of Platfontein, basic sustenance and entry into the job market are emphasized, and this brings about changes in people's way of life and understandings, as well as in how they relate to each other and the landscape. In this context, there are certain tensions and contradictions that underlie the work of social development and cultural heritage that are the mandates of SASI (South African San Institute) in Platfontein. It is essential that projects initiated by NGOs like SASI give cognizance to the complexities of people's lives, histories and story lines. Without this, people's experiences and multifaceted stories are inevitably sidelined to create essentialist narratives that meet the imaginings of tourists and sponsors. There is no doubt that SASI works from an intention of bringing about positive transformation in Platfontein, and has done useful work in the community. The essentialist discourse of the 'indigenous', however, is a ready temptation for NGOs and the groups they represent to adopt, as it is politically expedient to do so in order to gain access to land and resources. This needs to be challenged at the level of policy so that access to geographical space or political power does not necessitate a denial of history or complexity.
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    Belonging to the West Coast : an ethnography of St Helena Bay in the context of marine resource scarcity
    (2010) Schultz, Oliver John; Green, Lesley
    This dissertation uses ethnography as a means to examine how multiple-scale patterns of interaction between social and ecological systems as they manifest locally in St Helena Bay. The growing integration of the West Coast has brought rapid change in the form of industrial production, urban development and in-migration. The pressure placed on local resources by these processes has been exacerbated by the rationalisation of the local fisheries - there are fewer jobs in the formal industry and small-scale fishing rights have become circumscribed. In the neighbourhood of Laingville, historically-contingent racial categories have become reinvigorated in a context resource scarcity.
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    “Collecting spring water reminds us how to be human”: in search of an ethic of care for the springs of southern Cape Town
    (2021) Tyrrell, Jessica; Green, Lesley
    Between 2015 and 2018 Cape Town was affected by a drought more severe than any on record. When it became clear that Cape Town might actually run out of water, thousands of its citizens flocked to the historical springs that flow from Table Mountain's groundwater, which for many of whom it was their first time collecting spring water. However, at the height of the water crisis, the municipality cemented over one of these vital springs after numerous complaints of disturbance by residents. Piped to a newly constructed water collection site enclosed by fences a kilometer away, the water was made accessible to the public through 16 industrial taps. While this action from the municipality may have been the only viable solution, it was experienced as a huge loss to the people of Cape Town. This study investigates why the design of the current spring water collection point became the source of such criticism. It compares the re-designed site with two of Cape Town's southern springs that still flow freely, investigating the meaning and influence of unrestricted flowing spring water through public engagement on site, asking what draws people to collect spring water. Key themes that emerged include health and wellbeing; and connection with other humans, with history, with nature and with a greater spirit. Springs are powerful agents for an ethic of care, the study finds, and water a powerful medium of connection. Yet, the city's water policies are shaped by the kind of thinking that sees water only as a commodity, reflected in an urban design that further alienates people from water and nature. In this era of the Anthropocene, itself a condition of this alienation of people from the earth, the paper concludes and proposes biophilic design principles that foster the sensibilities of connection and interdependence as a vital part of urban design for a shared future where people come to know what it means to be human as participants within a living world.
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    Colonial and Post-colonial Rangeland Enclosures amid Climate Uncertainty: The Case of Maasai Pastoralists of Kajiado County, Kenya
    (2022) Mugambi, Munene Mutuma; Green, Lesley; Matose, Frank
    The enclosure of common resources in Kenya's rangelands became more pronounced after Kenya's independence because of adverse land reform policies, which proved ineffective in addressing the prior injustices of the forceful dispossession of Maasai pastoralists by the British colonial authority. The ongoing enclosure of common resources by both state and private capital for economic gain has left the herder community exposed to the adverse effects of climate change. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the adaptive capacity of Maasai to the intersecting stresses of climate change and resource enclosure. It examines the implications of common-resource enclosures for the Maasai livestock economy and the coping mechanisms they have undertaken to build adaptive capacity to changing climate conditions. The analysis employs an ethnographic approach using interviews and participant observation to collect data from field research in Ildamat-Oloyiankalani, Kajiado County, Kenya. The study is embedded in the daily herding and resource foraging practices of Maasai that took place during the prolonged drought period of 2017 and 2018 and in their ongoing experience of the intersecting stresses of climate change and common-resource enclosures. The study unveiled three major insights. First, that a tightening grip over common resources by private property growth has undermined the consensus-based democratic governance of resources, disrupted herders' access rights and exposed them to climate risks. Second, that pastoralists developed collective grazing arrangements and acquired exclusive grazing rights as mechanisms to improve herd mobility and resource access to cope with the intersecting stresses of climate change and the enclosure of grazing commons. Lastly, the study found that the implications of growing resource pressure and climate risk have driven pastoralists to actively assemble to disrupt further enclosure of their commons and to protect their rights. These insights confirm the importance of pastoralists' access rights to rangeland resources. In conclusion, the thesis broadly argues that facilitating extractive capitalism by disrupting pastoralists' access rights through common-resource enclosures adversely affects their ability to cope with the intersecting stresses of climate and environmental change. Therefore, it is critical that resource governing policies facilitate the democratisation of grazing and water resources to protect the commons from further enclosure and to ensure equitable access. This would restore the commons approach and protect the remaining herders' access rights, lowering their vulnerability to the intersecting stresses of climate and environmental change.
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    Construction of personhood within Xhosa ethnicity: critical perspectives mediating state and community conflict over natural resources
    (2021) Magadla, Aphiwe; Matose, Frank; Green, Lesley
    This study examines the navigation of structural pressures, limitations and conservation policies by the community of Hobeni Village in the practice of traditional rituals within the context of nature conservation. It considers how ceremonies such as uKuqatywa komntwana, Intonjane, Ulwaluko, ukunikezelwa ko-Mkhontho, and Umcimbi/ Umgidi play a vital role in the construction of personhood among small groups of men, women and teenagers identifying as Xhosa people in the Hobeni Village in the Eastern Cape. The qualitative research drew insights from indigenous knowledge already known to the researcher, current research, participatory observation and semistructured interviews conducted on twenty-four members of the community. The ethnographic study found that systemic methods of nature conservation Vis a Vis symbolic oppression, sit in tension with the rituals performed by members of the AmaXhosa at Hobeni village. It argues that for Hobeni residents, accessing the natural resources placed under conservation is a vital aspect of their identity formation, which is impacted by conservation. The research found that current conservation practices pose a threat not only to AmaXhosa practices of identity formation and sense of belonging but also to the maintenance of their culture. The connection of the Hobeni people with nature is limited by conservation methods that force them to adapt their traditional practices that attempt to find congruence with their belief systems, but that strain the relationship between these villagers and their ancestors. In the search for alternative methods to preserve natural resources and maintain the culture of Hobeni village, this dissertation calls for the establishment of a different approach to conservation that is context-specific and community-centred. A transformative approach to conservation could advance environmental justice without compelling the community to negatively negotiate, as is currently the case, their cultural practices or erode their entanglement with nature. The contribution of this study lies in challenging the narrative or ideologically laden discourses that perceive people as a threat to nature and the environment. This dissertation concludes that people possess diverse knowledge systems and resources that enable them to coexist and conserve nature in their surroundings or living environment.
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    Corporeal routes: climbing towards culture
    (2004) Goodrich, Andre; Green, Lesley
    Traditionally, spatial knowledge has been conceptualized and explained through the use of the cognitive map hypothesis, in which the metaphor of the topographic map is used to construct an explanation of the way in which knowledge about space is stored and used. I argue that the topographical metaphor confuses the map with the territory and is therefore inadequate for approaching the study of peoples' spatial knowledge, as the necessary logical reduction that accompanies the practice of transforming the territory into the map is fundamentally alienating of contextual dynamics and particularities. Furthermore, the topographical metaphor requires and thereby reinforces the Cartesian split, and its implicit privileging of the mind over the body, which disqualifies spatial knowledge from the realm of practical consciousness. Drawing on conversations with, and participant observation of rock climbers throughout 2003, I propose a model of spatial knowledge anchored in corporeal simulation rather than mental representation, and demonstrate the necessity of this conceptual shift by arguing that one's perception of the environment proceeds from the culturally inscribed and extended body, just as the body is imaginatively extended and inscribed in order to meet the requirements of effective and acceptable functioning in the context of a particular located activity.
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    Ebbs and flows: more-than-human encounters with the Cape Flats Aquifer in a context of climate change
    (2021) Polic, Deanna; Solomon, Nikiwe; Green, Lesley
    This dissertation advocates inclusive and integrated more-than-human relations as humans, technoscience, and nature become increasingly entangled in contexts of climate change and socio-ecological crisis. Researching in the environmental humanities between 2017 and 2020, I situate my study in Cape Town, South Africa, where the fluctuations between water's abundance and absence—as evidenced by the 2018 drought—have necessitated new approaches to ontology and epistemology that critically disrupt dominant systems of thought. Using the Cape Flats Aquifer and its aboveground area, the Philippi Horticultural Area, as my primary field sites, I focused on the legal battle that has surfaced between various human actors over land and water use, to explore how different human-nature relationships emerge, and to evaluate the social and environmental implications thereof. The overall inquiry guiding my research is how the Cape Flats Aquifer can make the case for multispecies relations by examining how it flows, or is brought into, existence. First, I present the different kinds of evidence that make the aquifer and its aboveground area un/seen; second, I assess whether alternative ways of evidencing the aquifer exist with a focus on farming practices in the Philippi Horticultural Area; third, I question what ought to be part of the aquifer evidentiary if sustainable, adaptive, and resilient human-nature relations are to be achieved? I argue that humans, multispecies, and earthly bodies such as the aquifer ought to be understood as relational, multiple, and intimately implicated in each other in the face of unpredictable climatic conditions.
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    An ethnography of St Helena Bay - A West Coast Town in the age of neoliberalism
    (2010) Shultz, O; Green, Lesley
    This dissertation uses ethnography as a means to examine how multiple-scale patterns of interaction between social and ecological systems as they manifest locally in St Helena Bay. The growing integration of the West Coast has brought rapid change in the form of industrial production, urban development and in-migration. The pressure placed on local resources by these processes has been exacerbated by the rationalisation of the local fisheries - there are fewer jobs in the formal industry and small-scale fishing rights have become circumscribed. In the neighbourhood of Laingville, historically-contingent racial categories have become reinvigorated in a context resource scarcity. An autochthonous cultural heritage related to the West Coast has become transposed onto the category of 'real' or 'bona fide' fishers. For those who claim this identity, it serves as a means to legitimate claims to resources while simultaneously excluding the claims of others. A pattern of recurring dichotomies emerges as a defining motif capturing the sense among local people that threatening elements from 'outside' are imposing themselves on the local socio-ecology. For small-scale fishers, the lack of recognition by the state of what they believe is their autochthonous right to access to the marine commons feeds an intense sense of frustration. The act of breaking 'the rules' of the state is perceived by many as an assertion of their rights and thus, of their dignity. In the case of poaching, it is seen by fishers as a means to become an active agent in one's own life, while at the same time making more money than could be made if fishing rules were adhered to. Because of these powerful symbolic and material motivations for breaking the rules, it is something that many people take pride in doing. In contradistinction to this, following the rules of the state is seen as collaborating with the state in undermining one's own socio-economic conditions, and, significantly, in negating one's birthright. For many fishers in Laingville, adhering to the rules is infused stigma
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    Examining the Experiences of Smallholder farmers in Malawi towards Farm Input Subsidies
    (2022) Tambala, Henry; Green, Lesley; Matose, Frank
    The author of this dissertation is the last born in their family. He was born and grew up in the rural area of the Blantyre district of the beloved country Malawi which is also popularly known as the warm heart of Africa for its friendly people. Our African belief states that one's strength is made manifest by the number of children. Like arrows in the pouch of a hunter, so are one's children. They will be able to defend him when his strength is gone in his old age. That led families to have many children even though there were not enough resources for their sustenance and upkeep. Our community consists of agrarian community. When growing up, we prepared our fields between August and September in readiness for the next planting season. Afterward, we could eagerly wait to hear the heavenly voice of thunder and rumblings that announced the coming of the first rains marking the beginning of the new agricultural season. One could catch the distinct earthy flavor of the smell of rain from miles away when rain falls after a long dry spell of weather, and soon, everything would come alive. The land which had been dry, dusty, and barren would turn to beautiful fields covered in green vegetation. Birds could sing beautifully, and livestock could graze as they lazily chased away flies on their backs by the use of their tails. That was usually between October and November, and soon after planting our seeds which maize is a king of all crops, we could count days before enjoying the first fruits of our labors. Those were days when rainfall patterns were predictable and the harvest sure. Close to our village, there was a river that flowed throughout the year. That was where we got water for all our domestic purposes. It was called the Ntengera River, and that means the river that carries all sorts of things. They say that water is life. This river brought all manner of life-giving resources for us. When it flooded during the rainy seasons, it could bring us all sorts of things such as sugarcane and other crops uprooted elsewhere from upstream. It also provided us with delicious chambo and other different varieties of fish. At times, we could go fishing when nsima (mealie pap) was about to be cooked, and within a few minutes, we could come back home with a good catch of fish. Sometimes, we could put poisonous plants into the river to contaminate its waters. That could poison fish and make them grasp in need of fresh air, and in that way, we could easily catch them. It is in this river where we also learned how to swim and play water sports games. When the harvesting period was over, we used to plant vegetables along this river for both home consumption and sale in the urban sector of Blantyre. We could apply pesticides such as Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) to prevent pests from attacking our crops to enhance vegetable production. No one could pronounce this name in our village, and everybody opted for its abbreviation. The pesticide is a general name that refers to a wide range of other compounds aimed at promoting crop productivity and regulating other unwanted herbs, fungi, insects, rodents, molasses, and many other pests. Ideally, the intention was to kill pests and leave the crops uncontaminated. However, with pesticides such as DDT, this has not always been the case. Such pesticides targeted other organisms such as insects and other invertebrates. Organisms such as insects and earthworms act as agents of cross-pollination and natural recyclers for the soil ecosystem. No wonder that some of our arable lands are no longer productive as they used to be. Even though the banning of DDT pesticides from using it happened as early as the 1960s in the developed world, most developing nations continued to use them due to a lack of alternatives. Eventually, these pesticides have found their way into the environment and human bodies with devastating impacts. Our late grandfather used to tell us that some chronic diseases affecting people nowadays were unheard of during their youthful days. In search of more land for cultivation and better access to water sources, we used to cultivate close to the river banks, and sometimes we went as far as clearing off plants and vegetation that grew along the river banks. For us, there was nothing wrong with that. Everyone was doing it. Little did we know that with all these Anthropocene practices, we were squeezing the life out of our beloved river and fast-pacing it to dry up. The more we stripped off the dressing for that river, the more it became naked and thus vulnerable to direct tropical sunshine. Trees and vegetation are part of the water cycle and, without their presence, leave the water cycle with some gaps. This river that used to flow throughout the year has become a seasonal river with waters flowing through it only during the rainy season. Topsoil washed away from upstream has now filled up natural water reservoirs. That makes the rainwater rush through the Ntengera river on its way to the Shire River and then disappears into the mighty Zambezi river. The concentration of washed-up nutrients has not only helped to contaminate the water quality, but it has also raised fecal coliforms and other sediment loads that have promoted the damage of aquatic ecosystems. Is this the sixth mass extinction after the fifth extinction of dinosaurs? Can environmental pollution be reversed? Can there be restoration or repair of the broken water cycle for that beloved Ntengera river and all other water bodies and the entire ecosystems? Can we travel back to the future through our actions to make right what went wrong? What about the disrupted livelihoods of the rural communities now displaced from their original places of habitation in search of better livelihoods? The disruption of their rural economies was due to anthropogenic environmental changes of modern globalization practices? This study is a story of those changes—stories of how the landscape and the environment have changed. These are stories of change that have ended up transforming non-human and humans in our community and our neighbours and their neighbours to a national, regional, and continental level. That is an ethnographic story of rural communities both for humans and nonhumans. It is a story about the supremacy of human beings over nature and the ecological trap that humanity has set for itself and the entire ecosystem. It is a story of rural communities whose livelihoods have been disturbed by rich developed nations and how they continue to exploit local people and extract their only last resource and means of livelihood - subsistence farming through agricultural intensification and promotion of new technology.
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    Fertility, sexuality and HIV/Aids prevention campaigns in Mafalala barrio, Maputo, Mozambique
    (2004) Paulo, Margarida do Rosario Domingos; Green, Lesley
    This paper attempts to understand perceptions of fertility and sexuality in relation to HIV/Aids prevention in Mafalala barrio, Maputo, Mozambique. The work explores ways in which people create or re-create meanings for fertility in order to fulfil kinship expectations. The notion of individual choice highlighted in the condom campaigns is contrasted with people's ideas about 'protection'. This suggests that socio-cultural factors should be taken into account when developing HIV/Aids prevention programs. The study concludes with a discussion of some lessons for the HIV/Aids educational programs in Mafalala and other areas similar to the barrio.
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    Forest insects, personhood and the environment: Harurwa (edible stinkbugs) and conservation in south-eastern Zimbabwe
    (2014) Mawere, Munyaradzi; Green, Lesley
    This study critically examines the possibilities for the mutual, symbiotic coexistence of human beings, biological organisms (a unique species of insects), and natural forests in a specific environment, Norumedzo, in the south-eastern region of rural Zimbabwe. Based on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in the aforementioned region between December 2011 and December 2012, the study interrogates the enlightenment modernist paradigmatic oppositions such as science versus indigenous knowledge and nature versus culture and as such forms part of a major epistemological shift in Anthropology towards rethinking the binaries created by enlightenment modern thought which have for so long served to confine anthropological attention to the social. The study advances the argument that modernist divides/binaries are artificial and impede understanding of environmentalities, especially of relationships between social ‘actors’ in any given space, given that mutual relationships and interactions between humans and other beings as well as between diverse epistemologies are an effective proxy of nurturing ‘sustainable’ conservation. The study demonstrates how some aspects of the emerging body of literature in the post-humanities and relational ontologies can work to grasp the collaborative interactional space for different social “actors” in the environment through which knowledge communities can be extended. Given that the post-humanities approach advanced in this work focuses attention on relationships among people, animals, ancestors, and things, it rethinks the enlightenment modernist division of the world into subjects and objects, that is, into humans and things. Rethinking those divisions enables fresh conversations between the [Western] sciences and other knowledge forms especially indigenous epistemologies. In this study, the rethinking of those divides is facilitated by an anthropological exploration of the social interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of rural Zimbabweans, forest insects known as edible stinkbugs (harurwa in vernacular) and the natural forests which, in fact, are critical to understanding the eco-systemic knowledges upon which livelihoods of many rural Zimbabweans are hinged.
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    Imulating storyteller-audience interactions in digital storytelling: questions, exchange structures & story objects
    (2012) Ladeira, Ilda; Marsden, Gary; Green, Lesley
    This work revolves around the design and evaluation of digital storytelling simulating real personal storytelling. Study One was an ethnography, of real storytellers, which revealed types of narratives, dynamism and interactivity in storytelling. This was used to design digital storytelling, which simulated the behaviours of real storytellers. Three design ideas, questions, exchange structures and story objects , were prototyped and evaluated in Studies Two, Three and Four. Study One took place over three months at the District Six Museum, Cape Town. We studied narratives from three guides about their Apartheid-era experiences. Discourse analyses showed the narratives: (a) were structured as clauses, each relating a story event or thought; (b) varied minimally across retellings; (c) incorporated storyteller-audience interactions (periodic questions) between clauses which matched teacher-student interactions described by Sinclair & Coulthard (1975); and, in exchange structures, guides periodically asked audiences questions; and (d) incorporated the museum exhibit and memory box objects. The digital storytelling design focused on: simulating questions and exchange structures; and story objects, allowing user-triggered narratives. We implemented a virtual environment containing two interactive storyteller agents, and several story objects. Study Two (n=101) manipulated the effect of questions and exchange structures on story experience. Study Three (n=69) manipulated the effect of story objects on story experience. Story experience was composed of: interest in the narrative context, enjoyment of and engagement in the storytelling, and the storytelling realism. These were measured with a questionnaire created for these studies; psychometric analysis showed it to be valid and reliable. Linear models showed questions increased interest (F =5.72, p =0.02) and engagement (F= 3.92, p =0.05) while exchange structures increased interest ( F =6, p =0.02), enjoyment ( F =4.14, p <0.04) and engagement ( F =10.53, p =0.002). Usage logs showed participants interacted readily with both while the agents could answer a mean of 35% of user questions. Story objects did not impact story experience. Study Two and Three's participants reported high story experience scores and predominantly positive qualitative feedback. In Study Four (n=93), the prototype was exhibited at District Six Museum for nine days. We observed visitor interaction, logged usage automatically and gathered voluntary feedback, which was largely positive. Visitors tended to engage passively with the prototype and linear models showed age was a predictor of the number of question ( F= 31.75, p <0.001) and exchange structure ( F =4.45, p <0.04) inputs. Additionally, multiple visitors would use the prototype simultaneously. We conclude that integrating different methodologies allowed us to simulate real storyteller-audience interactions and that the questions and exchange structure interactions we designed improved experiences of digital personal narratives. This design may be replicated by others seeking to similarly preserve the experience of personal storytelling.
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    In the realm of the Kob Kings : rethinking knowledges and dialogue in a small-scale fishery
    (2012) Duggan, Gregory L; Green, Lesley; Jarre, Astrid
    Emerging from seven months of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation conducted in the small-scale commercial handline fishery of Stilbaai, this dissertation examines and rethinks knowledges in a bid to open dialogue between experts (academic researchers, fisheries managers and fishers). The field research for this work was conducted in two intensive ethnographic fieldwork trips of four months and three months respectively between early 2010 and 2011. Stilbaai is home to a small-scale commercial handline fishing industry supporting roughly thirty-five permanent boat crews each comprising between three and eight fishers including the skipper. During my time in Stilbaai I worked with a group of fishers, conducting ethnographic interviews and participant observation (which involved fishing trips to sea and 'hanging out' with the fishers).
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    Is our evidence contaminated? Tracing the ways in which proof is validated in the context of Cape Town's marine effluent outfalls
    (2021) Zackon, Melissa Amy; Green, Lesley; Petrik, Leslie
    The effects on seawater quality from Cape Town's marine outfalls and their use for sewage disposal has been a concern for local residents for over a century. This dissertation explores the production of scientific evidence that contrasts public experience and independent science. Beginning with the 2015 application by the City of Cape Town (CoCT) for a permit renewal to continue discharging 38 million cubic meters of sewage daily off the city's Atlantic coast, the study considers the arguments of concerned citizens, photographers and independent scientists who warned that the outfalls are responsible for poor seawater quality. This dissertation begins by tracing the contemporary experiences of concerned citizens as they discovered that the outfall was polluting the ocean and then considers the evidence utilised by the CoCT in their responses to these concerns and in their permit application. The study finds that the CoCT's commissioned CSIR report and the use of tourism-orientated Blue Flag criteria are not compatible with the public interest and independent findings, and further finds that a managerialist approach to scientific data has confused the fulfilment of departmental mandates with the public interest, though they are not the same thing. Through the signing of international treaties, its constitution and various legislations, South Africa prescribes to the precautionary principle, but the author argues that this principle has not been applied in this scenario and that retrospective attitudes towards beach management and seawater quality concerns have been applied instead. Consequently, the implementation of a proactive and forward-looking procedure is recommended, and transparency, ocean modelling and the precautionary principle should be applied to the management of Cape Town's marine outfalls and to concerns over its water quality and attendant data.
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    Open Access
    Knowledge, chivanhu and struggles for survival in conflict-torn Manicaland, Zimbabwe
    (2014) Nhemachena, Artwell; Green, Lesley; Ross, Fiona C
    This dissertation explored how villagers in a district of Manicaland province of Zimbabwe deeply affected by violence and want survived the violence that has characterised Zimbabwe’s most recent politics (from the year 2000). Marked by invasions of white owned farms, by interparty violence, interpersonal violence as well as witchcraft related violence, the period posed immense challenges to life and limb. Yet institutions of welfare, security and law enforcement were not equal to the task of ensuring survival necessitating questions about the sufficiency of “modern” institutions of law enforcement, media, politics, economy and health in guaranteeing survival in moments of want. How villagers survived the contexts of immense want, acute shortages of cash, basic commodities, formal unemployment levels of over ninety percent, hyperinflation (which in 2008 reached over 231 million percent) and direct physical violence is cause for wonder for scholarship of everyday life. Based on ethnographic data gathered over a period of fifteen months, the dissertation interrogates how villagers survived these challenges. Unlike much scholarship on Zimbabwe’s ‘crisis’, it takes seriously matters of knowing and ontology with respect to chivanhu (erroneously understood as “tradition” of the Shona people).
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    Open Access
    Living with Mount Mabo: povoados, land, and nature conservation in contemporary Mozambique
    (2021) Matusse, Anselmo; Green, Lesley; Matose Frank
    Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the povoados of Nvava and Nangaze, in the district of Lugela, Zambézia Province, central Mozambique, consisted of field visits that started in June 2016 and ended in April 2018, this thesis is an ethnography of the relationships between people, spirits, animals and landscapes. It examines the cultural, scientific, ethical, and economic stakes of local modes of relating to Mount Mabo, the River Múgue and Mount Muriba that both abide by and surpass the exclusionary forms of science, nature conservation and governance that dominate environmentalism in Mozambique. Focusing on narratives and practices, the study explores concepts such as person, nature and time as mobilized by the state, conservationists and local residents, and describe the respective emerging worlds and their messy interconnections, namely, the conservationists' "Google Forest" premised on techno-science and modernist ideals and seeking to enact a divide between nature and society, the "Neo-extractive" version of landscapes promoted by the Frelimo-run state in its attempt to generate wealth and alleviate poverty also premised on techno-science and modernist ideals that construct nature as a natural resource and "public good" to be owned through DUATs (land use rights certificates) that only the state can grant or revoke; and finally, the "Secret Mount Mabo" as experienced and expressed by local residents whereby landscapes emerge as relational entities demanding ori'a (respect) from the humans with whom they engage in a relation of mutual belonging. In this world, the amwene emerge as the ones who control access to the mountain and forest through their ritual and spiritual power. The study finds that reframing of colonial and neoliberal notions of property, nature, labour and citizenry by conservationists and the state, underlies their technoscientific approaches seeking to protect nature from devastation and impose and their respective versions of nature, human and time—worlds—on local residents. That approach renders dialogues across ontologies extremely difficult. Working with local residents' concepts and practices the study proposes that Mount Mabo conservation efforts are at odds with local ontologies. While these are central to local residents and their practices of world-making, such ontologies occupy a marginal role in conservation project planning, design, and implementation, amid conservationists' attempts to mobilize local residents' alliance in nature protection. These observations draw from and reinterpret contemporary scholarship on political ecology, political ontology, Africanist thought, and decolonial theory, in that they account for different ecological practices and concepts that are linked to practices of wealth redistribution, recognition of other non-modernist ontologies and their colonial legacies. The study proposes that understanding and accounting for these differences and the ways they are made to endure or resisted could help in finding alternatives conducive to ensuring both ecological and local residents' wellbeing in ways that advance decoloniality in Mozambique.