BOOK REVIEWSLesley Green, Rock | Water | Life: Ecology and Humanities for a Decolonial South AfricaSamuel LongfordCentre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6905-5374Lesley Green, Rock | Water | Life: Ecology and Humanities for a Decolonial South Africa (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020), 320pp., ISBN: 9781478003991I think the...
BOOK REVIEWSJulie Bonzon, The Market Photo Workshop in South Africa and the 'Born Free' Generation: Remaking HistoriesBongani KonaUniversity of the Western Cape, Department of Historical Studies. https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9277-240XJulie Bonzon, The Market Photo Workshop in South Africa and the 'Born Free' Generation: Remaking Histories (New York: Routledge, 2024), 197pp., ISBN...
BOOK REVIEWSKhumisho Moguerane, Morafe: Person, Family and Nation in Colonial Bechuanaland, 1880s-1950sTara WeinbergDepartment of History, University of the Witwatersrand https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3163-1169Khumisho Moguerane, Morafe: Person, Family and Nation in Colonial Bechuanaland, 1880s-1950s (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2024), 469 pp, ISBN 978-1-4314-3277-6Morafe: Person...
BOOK REVIEWSTeresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro, Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine before the NakbaBen VergheseCentre for Archive and Information Studies, University of Dundee https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4458-400XTeresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro, Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine before the Nakba (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2024), 240 pp...
BOOK REVIEWSAnna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena, and Feifei Zhou, Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human AnthropoceneMeghan JudgeOrigins Centre Association, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of Witwatersrand https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3588-2133Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena, and Feifei Zhou, Feral Atlas: The...
REVIEW ESSAYThe Space Between Shadows and QuietEmma MinkleyPostdoctoral Fellow with SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5990-2442Amber Jamilla Musser Between Shadows and Noise: Sensation, Situatedness, and the Undisciplined (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2024), 208pp...
SPECIAL SECTION 2: IMAGING THE ENVIRONMENTArtist conversation - Festina lente: A Conversation on Speed and Slowness in the Photographer's EnvironmentThis is an edited and supplemented version of a conversation between Koffi and Tsapayi at the annual Visual History and Theory International Workshop - Power: Remaking Selves, Archives, Environments, held at the CHR's Iyatsiba Lab...
This photo essay explores the photographic work of Visual History students from the University of the Western Cape in the context of human and non-human relations as they stand in connection to the ocean and the Anthropocene. The photographs were taken on an annual class excursion to the coastal South African village of Pringle Bay and are in some ways a practical exploration of...
Following World War II, the British government created the Directorate of Overseas Surveys (DOS) to aerially photograph, survey and map 55 Commonwealth countries across the globe, including nearly two dozen across Africa. The photographic collection of approximately 1.7 million images is now held by the National Collection of Aerial Photography / Historic Environment Scotland and...
This paper seeks to unpack the social, environmental and cultural impact that virtual reality (VR) photographic documentation has on sacred geo-heritage sites. Artistic and creative researchers have consciously or unconsciously practiced immersive at-tunement when visiting and creating digital art. Several of these sacred geo-heritage sites are protected for their geological...
This article is devoted to the problem of photographic representation of the environmental harm caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In many cases, this damage is intentional and due to the military strategy employed by the Russian military. The most illustrative case of this kind is the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, whose consequences are comparable with...
The flourishing field of environmental humanities has increasingly called for a shift in perspective, urging scholars to de-centre the human and engage deeply with the materialities of both organic and inorganic matter. This approach requires broadening our understanding of historical agency and perception, recognising the roles of randomness, matter, climate, weather, and non...
This Special Section on 'Imaging the Environment' is a companion to Archiving the Environment', and our task has likewise been to question how techniques of imaging such as photography affect environments, and vice-versa. This Introduction considers how the question of extraction is deeply enmeshed with the ethics of seeing, and how we are frequently made aware of the problem...
Mud is one of the most commonplace substances, but it defies attempts to describe it. Mud can be thought of as an archive in miniature, holding secrets about environmental change in deep time. This essay asks what we might be able to learn if we could listen to mud, to give voice to the history locked in its murky matrix. With examples from the arts and science, it explores mud...
This paper narrates the interspecies relatedness and gendered entanglements in the life journey of anchovies from the oceans to the plate. In dynamic capitalist sites, anchovies are transformed from their very being into cheap resources and are translated as new commodity frontiers with varying social and ecological consequences. Anchovies were once part of the staple diet of the...
This paper presents Crossings, a multilingual screenplay that interrogates the relationship between archives, memory, and the environment around South Africa's Eerste River. Crossings forms part of Kammakamma, a video project by artist Abri de Swardt exploring narratives entangled with the mouth of the Eerste River. The paper's introduction provides further context for the...
Traditionally a 'dry' discipline little concerned with ecocritical themes, book history has started to engage with environmental humanities in a more sustained way. This paper joins this trend by considering insects in colonial archives. Starting with the insects themselves, the paper considers state responses of fumigation, and what this means for definitions of books and...
This introduction describes the work of the Archiving Environmental Change working group, which emerged from the Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean, a programme established by the Social Science Research Council in 2019, with funding from the Mellon Foundation. The group set out to explore how the terms 'archives' and 'environment' change each other. This...
SPECIAL SECTION 1: ARCHIVING THE ENVIRONMENTRuined Landscapes, Sweaty BodiesAnna TsingI; Feifei ZhouIIIDistinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz; Professor of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0411-959X IIterriStories https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3906-2376ABSTRACTThis photo essay examines the ecological, social...
Yussuf Adam's doctoral thesis ends with a short story collected in 1981 in the village of Mualela, on the Mueda plateau. In it, the president of the village speaks of the marriage of Mary, God's daughter, as a metaphor for the post-independence dynamics, where the solidarity of the liberation struggle gave way to feelings of injustice in the redistribution of power and benefits...
REVIEWDénètem Touam Bona, Fugitive, where are you running?Paolo IsraelDepartment of Historical Studies, University of the Western Cape https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5322-0929D. Touam Bona, Fugitive, Where are you Running?, L. Hengehold (trans) (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2023), 230 pp., ISBN: 978-1509551842Fugitive, Where are you Running? is a collection of essays, most of which...
In this article, I reflect on education as a continuing arena of tension for people in Cabo Delgado. The tension between formal (state-sponsored) and religious education as a backdrop of the conflict in Cabo Delgado has been widely mentioned but largely misunderstood. Scholars have consistently mentioned poverty and people's lack of access to formal education as drivers of the...
Revolutionary experiments require building revolutionary relationships. This praxis of material and social creativity to reorganise power dynamics and weave connections across weaponised divides, are evident in the content, the form and the backstory woven into Janet Biehl's Their Blood Got Mixed: Revolutionary Rojava and the War on ISIS. Written and illustrated by Janet Biehl...
REVIEWThe Hijab: Islam, Women and the Politics of ClothingP. K. Yasser Arafath and G. Arunima (eds), The Hijab: Islam, Women and the Politics of Clothing (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022), 272 pp., ISBN: 9789392099380Dedicated to the 'Muslim girls and women protesting for their rights in India and Iran', historians P. K. Yasser Arafath and G. Arunima have compiled a deeply...