EHS hosts the Planetary Portals Collective

Environmental Humanities South (EHS) is excited to be hosting Planetary Portals Collective, made up of artist-researcher Michael Salu, geographer and anthropologist Kerry Holden, geographer Casper Laing Ebbensgaard, and inhuman geographer Kathryn Yusoff, all of whom are based in the United Kingdom and Berlin, Germany.

The collective’s project examines the colonial afterlife of gold and diamond mining in South Africa. In so doing, they attend to the effects of these histories on how social and environmental harm has been produced and continues to live. The first day started with a meeting between the Collective and the EHS, comprising of Dr Nobukhosi Ngwenya, Dr Tawanda Jimu, Dr Nteboheng Phakisi-Portas, Dr Cecilia Ojemaye, mpho ndaba, Dr Nikiwe Solomon, and Professor Lesley Green.

By a way of exploring collaboration and possible partnerships, we are seeking to build on the ongoing critical questions around the Anthropocene life, foregrounding habitability and repair in the world. As part of the visit, Professor Yussof will be giving a guest lecture to the current cohort of graduate students in the Researching The Anthropocene (RTA) class, led by Dr Nikiwe Solomon. Yussof, amongst others, will be teaching on geology and race, also drawing from her recently published (2024) book Geologic Time: inhuman intimacies and the geophysics of race.

The Collective, together with members of the EHS team, will also visit a research site that forms part of the CzASE Studies in Cape Town.