The Urban Futures Centre (UFC) at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) was excited to showcase the institution on an international stage as leading innovative, creative methods in understanding climate change.
This was made possible through the research-based theatre play Lalela ulwandle (Listen to the Sea in isiZulu), that explores the spiritual, cultural and scientific understandings of the oceans in a time of climate change. This UFC research project was done in collaboration with Empatheatre and the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University and is funded by the One Ocean Hub.
The dynamic theatre group was formally invited to perform by the office of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be a part of their COP27 Capacity-building hub session in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on 14 November 2022.
The Capacity-building Hub’s mission is to address current and emerging gaps and needs in implementing and further enhancing climate change capacity-building in developing countries.
Lalela uLwandle explores intergenerational environmental injustices, tangible and intangible ocean heritage, marine science, threats to ocean health, and exclusion from ocean decision-making. There are several ways in which this performance sheds new light (and hope) on some of the well-known conundrums of climate change governance, at (but also beyond) the ocean-climate nexus. Lalela uLwandle demonstrates how marine and social scientists can work together with holders of different knowledge systems, constructively, to cultivate a more unified understanding of environmental challenges. The Lalela uLwandle performance allowed the audience to deeply connect and “experience” different worldviews, without having to take a position or feeling the need to choose one over another.
Secondly, Lalela uLwandle illuminates the inter-linked human rights dimensions of ocean and climate governance, from the local to the international level. It shows the knowledge, contributions, needs and marginalization of small scale fishers, Indigenous peoples and women, which are all expressions of their human rights to livelihoods, health, culture and participation.
Lalela uLwandle further explores the role (and marginalisation) of scientists in ocean governance, and overlaps between western and Indigenous knowledge particularly on the importance of the ocean in the global water cycle. On the whole, the play offered plenty of food for thought on how everyone needs to prevent the mistakes of past climate action (including human rights violations) on land and rather take human rights as a pre-condition for transformative governance at the ocean-climate nexus.
More so, the empatheatre provided an innovative method for more open and constructive public dialogue on complex and inter-linked matters related to the environment, societies and cultures.
Pictured: Mpume Mthombeni performing in Lalela uLwandle at COP27 UNFCCC Capacity Building Hub in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on 14 November 2022.
Photographer: Kiara Worth.
Simangele Zuma
