Podcast on gender and the ocean – featuring early-career researchers Aphiwe Moshani and Buhle Francis
In the fourth episode of the Hub’s podcast series, focusing on gender and the ocean, Knowledge Exchange Associate Milica Prokic speaks to early-career researchers and the British Council Scotland SGSAH EARTH Scholarship winners, Aphiwe Moshani (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and Buhle Francis (Rhodes University, South Africa). They talk about women’s knowledge of the ocean, their distinctive ocean-related practices, including seaweed harvesting, and the challenges they face, from experiencing and witnessing climate change, to their struggle to ensure gender equality in the context of the blue economy. The podcast guests also share their own complex experiences as women conducting ocean research in the Global South.
Diving into the podcast
The first part of the episode focused on the fresh, exciting work of the two scholars and activists- both recent winners of the British Council Scotland SGSAH EARTH Scholarship- Buhle spent her time in residency at the Strathclyde University in the late 2023, while we anticipate Aphiwe’s arrival to Strath in April this year.
They spoke about women in coastal communities and the challenges of their everyday life and livelihoods. They discussed Buhle’s pioneering participatory research project with women and seaweed in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, tackling the topics of gender, ocean and labour and the challenges they face, from experiencing and witnessing climate change in their life everyday life and work, to women’s struggle for gender equality and equity, and the harsh treatment the women seaweed harvesters who are native to these shores. The episode also focused on Aphiwe’s PhD thesis and broader research on gender and the loaded, often contested notion of Blue Economy.
Crucially for the context of gender, women, and ocean-related academic research, in the Part 1 of the podcast episode Buhle and Aphiwe also shared their own experiences as the ocean researchers and black African women, and the intersectionality of challenges they face- and tackle- in their work.
Part 2 of the episode zeroes in on Buhle’s recent publication, as well as her engagement on the various Learning Pathways and other outputs on the knowledge sharing One Ocean Learn platform, and Buhle’s new publication, co-authored with Dylan McGarry ‘Grandmothers of the sea: Stories and lessons from five Xhosa ocean elders’ in the recent (2023) Routledge’s edited volume Hydrofeminist Thinking With Oceans.
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