I am guest blogging at the Transition Network for 6 months and my first blogpost just went up. In the series I want to think about what the environment, environmentalism, nature are and mean to Africans and for Africa. I do this through interviews with some people I know who work within these spaces and I will be inquiring into what they think and how they make their visions of the environment come alive. It’s not a complete or representative list by any measure, but it is a beginning and taste to push back against a narrative that says that Africans don’t care about the environment, or that the sum total of environmental concern is elephants and trees (both important but not the only).
“African environmentalism is there and has been there. It is varied across space: existing in rural areas and in urban spaces, offshore and on islands, in forests, at the edge of deserts, in townships and informal settlements. It has taken diverse forms through the decades and centuries. Across the continent a mix of methods are employed: protest, policy, art, direct action, marches, education, prayer, academic and non-academic writing, music, performance, social media activism, presence and daily maintenance and creative work.”
Check out my first blog in which I develop these ideas here.
Afterward we can also discuss if a picture is complete without something green in it…. Is it?
Talk to me