Theme 6: Stewardship of the natural environment

May 16, 2016 / digeh / Leave a comment

The course required the students to have a direct engagement with the natural environment by visiting at least one park, green space or nature reserve. A number of student excursions were conducted by myself with the help of an expert guide. During the visit to the site, the students were asked to keep a journal and record their personal observations as well as identify the fauna and flora of the area. These notes were to inform their blog posts about the site visit.

A selection of the students’ blogs can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Theme 5: Tree Narratives and Photo elicitation

May 16, 2016May 16, 2016 / digeh / Leave a comment

Joanna Dean (2015:162) states that: “We like to tell stories about city trees. The stories shape our thinking, but more materially they shape our management of the trees. The meanings we find in these stories influence the choices we make when we plant trees in the city, they alter the ways that we trim and control the trees, and, finally, they inform our decisions to fell them”. The week’s theme was based on exploring the tree narratives that the students and their interviewees had. In order to generate feelings and memories in the interviewees’ stories of trees, the interviews were conducted with photo elicitation.

A selection of the students’ blogs can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Theme 4: Slow violence

April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 / digeh / Leave a comment

The week’s theme was based on Rob Nixon’s (2011) notion of ‘slow violence’. Nixon (2011:3) argues that a major problem in raising awareness of slow violence is representational: “how to devise arresting stories, images, and symbols adequate to the pervasive but elusive violence of delayed effects”. The students were tasked to take up the representational challenge and provide a photo essay in which they could bring into focus the consequences, effects and damages of slow violence.

A selection of the students’ blogs can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Kimberley Anne Spence

Tina van der Breggen

Bianca van Staden

Theme 3: Companion Species

April 19, 2016April 19, 2016 / digeh / Leave a comment

In this theme, the students were required to submit a photo essay based on Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘companion species’. They were tasked to identify four stories / narratives from friends or family members that highlight pet-human relations. The stories were to focus on accounts of kinship, friendship, affinities and emotional connectedness to domestic pets.

A selection of the students’ blogs can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Kimberley Anne Spence

Suzanne Van den Heever

Tina van der Breggen

Bianca van Staden

Kara Verster

Theme 2: The soundscapes of the Anthropocene

April 12, 2016April 12, 2016 / digeh / Leave a comment

The aim of Theme 2 of the Digital Environmental Humanities course was twofold: 1) to increase the students’ awareness, understanding and sensitivity to how the Anthropocene is evident in their local environment; 2) for the students to become alert and cognisant of the loss of biodiversity and devastation of ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

To achieve these aims, the students were tasked to keep a sound journal over a period of four days. For the first two days the students were tasked to record the sounds that they were surrounded by. The students were asked to evaluate if the recorded sounds can be regarded as a soundscape of the Anthropocene. During the last two days the students were encouraged to seek and record the sounds of birds. From these records the students were asked to discuss “What is it like to listen to birds in the Anthropocene?” (Whitehouse 2015:53).

The last component of the brief required that the students interview their parents and grandparents in order to provide an account of the animals and bird life that existed in their neighbourhood, city or town when they were growing up. The students were guided to consider how the interviews draw attention to the ways in which humans have altered the environment.

A selection of the students’ blogs can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Theme 1: Environmental Humanities and the media

April 4, 2016April 12, 2016 / digeh / Leave a comment

Background:

The media is instrumental in providing the South African public with an awareness of environmental concerns. However, the increased public awareness does not necessarily lead to public action. In the most part this is attributed to the media casting environmental concerns in a “negative light, focusing primarily on stories of catastrophes and political shortcomings rather than solutions” (Grant & Lawhon 2014:43). Therefore there is a need to analyse and critique the media’s reporting of environmental concerns.

Brief:

The students were tasked to provide an Environmental Humanities analysis and critique of an environmental issue that has recently been reported in the media.

A selection of the students’ blogs can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Coal-fired power stations