In this seminar, Hali Healy will discuss recent research and collaboration with people in Xolobeni, on South Africa’s Wild Coast, to map and document the area, local livelihoods and places of importance.
Xolobeni is renowned as a biodiversity hotspot, but equally for its community activism against mining, in defence of customary land rights and sustainable rural livelihoods. It is less well-known for the achievements of organized local civil society in protecting and developing the commons as the basis of a sustainable, equitable rural economy. The Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), the main community organisation representing coastal residents, has won precedent-setting legal victories against extractivist interests.
The seminar will be accompanied by a temporary exhibition of photographs taken as part of an ongoing collaboration that began in 2022, between the ACC, and geographers at the University of Johannesburg, and the University of KwaZulu Natal.
Organised by the Centre for Future Natures
Convening Space, Institute of Development Studies
19 October 2023 at 12.15-13.45
Hali Healy (University of Johannesburg) is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, linked to the Resource Politics research cluster and the Centre for Future Natures.
Image credit: Mbekezeli Mbuthuma