Re-membering the Hydrocommons: Water, Care, and Deep Time Pedagogies from the Global South
This public lecture explores water as a site of relational care, memory, and justice within the context of South Africa’s hydrocommons.
About the presentation
Drawing on feminist, posthumanist, and Indigenous-informed frameworks, I engage water not only as material substance but as a living archive that holds histories of exclusion, resilience, and belonging. Through practices of strandlooping (beach walking) and hydro-rugging (collective stitching), I trace how reparative pedagogies of care can emerge through embodied, research-creation methodologies.Â
Extending this work, I bring in recent collaborations that think with archaeology and deep time, situating human-water relations within longer temporal scales that exceed colonial histories and challenge anthropocentric narratives. Together, these approaches invite a re-imagining of care that is attuned to both ancestral hauntings and future possibilities, foregrounding Black and Brown watery bodies and their re-connections to oceanic and coastal spaces. The presentation diffracts with how such practices can contribute to more just, situated, and relational engagements with water.
About Aaniyah Martin
is a South African scholar, artist, and environmental practitioner working at the intersections of water, care, and social justice. With over two decades of experience in conservation, her work has shifted toward feminist, posthumanist, and research-creation approaches that centre relational ontologies and embodied ways of knowing.
Her doctoral research, completed at Rhodes University, explores reparative pedagogies for the hydrocommons through practices such as strandlooping and hydro-rugging. Aaniyah’s work is rooted in the context of Camissa (Cape Town) and engages deeply with the legacies of apartheid, foregrounding Black and Brown experiences of environmental exclusion and reconnection.Â
She works across disciplines and her recent collaboration with artist Amy Rusch brings archaeology and deep time into dialogue with water, care, and environmental memory. She is the founder of The Beach Co-op, a community initiative focused on ocean stewardship and creative environmental engagement, and serves on the faculty for Homeward Bound Projects, a global leadership initiative supporting women in STEMM.