Living the life of floods: place-based learning in an Anthropocene harmscape

Citation

Dickie J, Wilson A, Dick L, Ncube S, Abrams A, Black G, Blair N, Carden K, Hamilton-Smith N, Lamb G, Mpofu-Mketwa T, Petersen L & Robertson G (2023) Living the life of floods: place-based learning in an Anthropocene harmscape. Geoforum, 147, Art. No.: 103914. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103914

Abstract
This article explores how place-based learning and the development of landscape literacies unfold in a place suffused with a complex set of risks resulting from inter-operating and intersecting sociohistorical, political and environmental factors. By analysing assemblages of images and accompanying texts produced through a photovoice process undertaken by co-researchers in an informal settlement in South Africa’s Cape Flats, we show that residents are embedded in an ongoing process of embodied place-connectedness that has extensive pedagogical impact. We suggest that the learning that takes place in this harmscape may enable residents’ survival at the cost of allowing for either hope or the possibility of transformative change.

Keywords
Place-based learning; Landscape literacies; Assemblage; Assemblage analysis; Difference and repetition; Lines of articulation and flight

People

Dr Jennifer Dickie

Senior Lecturer, Biological and Environmental Sciences

Dr Niall Hamilton-Smith

Associate Professor, Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology

Dr Sikhululekile Ncube

Research Fellow, Education