Zikhona Ngqula's research makes headlines in local community media

This week, Environmental Humanities South (EHS) second-year Ph.D candidate, Zikhona Ngqula was featured on the local community newspaper TygerBurger, which falls under News24. The areas covered in the feature are  Table View, Milnerton, and De Grendel. Here, Ngqula was interviewed, reflecting on her ongoing research into the Diep River Estuary.

Sitting at the intersection of people’s relationships with nature, more so where notions of habitability, convivial living, and conservation are concerned, Ngqula’s study explores how local urban waterways can be better managed given the threats presented by climate change and environmental contamination in the multispecies and more than human life interactions in Cape Town’s urban waterways.  Thinking with health concerns for both people and nature, Ngqula’s research is especially critical for informing a locally relevant and community driven policy strategies that take account of how materials flow across landscapes.

As EHS, what this profiling enables for our work, is that it moves academic research engagement beyond the boundaries of the university, inviting local community actors to be aware of the socio-ecological issues that are happening in their local landscapes and how researchers like Ngqula are embarked in the process of critical inquiry and translation as a way to build sustainable partnerships with multiple actors, including the local municipality and city officials.