Hydrofeminist Thinking With Oceans

“As the seas rise, watery thinking is coming into view. This experimental collection of essays and provocations brings together many ways of thinking and being with oceanic environments. Through distinctive contributions enabled by South Africa’s historical, political, and physical conditions, these authors advance innovative practices, eco-theories, and visions for social and environmental justice.” – Steve Mentz, St. John’s University, USA; Author of An Introduction to the Blue Humanities (Routledge, 2023)

“This exciting multi-disciplinary text is at the forefront of new thinking on blue environmental justice. Immersed in the under-explored bathymetric setting of South Africa, the book draws from a depth of activist voices, perspectives and knowledges that caution us on how important past, present and future blue care is for all communities that live by, on, in and under the water.” – Ronan Foley, Associate Professor, University of Maynooth, Ireland

“This rich, transdisciplinary, and beautifully composed edited collection offers readers spaces for critical and ethical scholarship, promoting hopefulness for a justice to come. Hydrofeminist thinking is creatively shaped by storytelling inspired by art, literature, and activism, such as memories, poetry, photography, theatre, and swimming, writing, walking, and conversation. The multiplicity of local stories of Ocean/s and beaches in the South African geopolitical context in this book inspired me to slow and diffractive reading to read and read again, see, and see again, listen, and listen again, from different and entangled stories, wordings, and images. There is much to learn for international readers from this edited collection about how we become locally situated watery selves and the political and scholarly possibilities of hydrofeminist thinking for pedagogical creativity and environmental justice.” – Mona B. Livholts, Professor of Social Work, University of Helsinki, Finland; Author of The Body Politics of Glocal Social Work. Essays on the Post-Anthropocentric Condition (Routledge 2023)

“In this unique edited volume, readers will find a hydrofeminist cornucopia of oceanic contemplations, and reflections on highly creative eco- and art-activist practices, and Indigenous-centred methodologies. Using South Africa as a lens to Global South epistemologies, contributors ask: How to rethink haunting colonial histories, as well as resist post-apartheid inequalities, and extractive capitalism’s violent exploitations of environments and local communities through hydrofeminist approaches? This book is a ‘must’ for everyone wanting to engage with the question: What does it mean for environmental and social justice-to-come to shift for a thinking- and sensing- with oceans, sea critters, and ancestral knowledges of watery interconnections?”

Nina Lykke, Professor Emerita, Gender Studies, Linköping University Sweden, and Aarhus University, Denmark

“Take your thoughts on a wild swim and a free dive with this finger-on-the-pulse collection. Drawing together an impressive range of contemporary hydro- related theories, the volume refracts these from a global south and feminist perspective, re-exploring South Africa’s haunted histories via its coasts, shorelines and beaches. Exploring a range of media forms, this collection will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in oceans, climate change and social justice.”

Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor Emeritus, University of the Witwatersrand

“As the seas rise, watery thinking is coming into view. This experimental collection of essays and provocations brings together many ways of thinking and being with oceanic environments. Through distinctive contributions enabled by South Africa’s historical, political, and physical conditions, these authors advance innovative practices, eco-theories, and visions for social and environmental justice.”

Steve Mentz, St. John’s University, USA; Author of An Introduction to the Blue Humanities (Routledge, 2023)

“This exciting multi-disciplinary text is at the forefront of new thinking on blue environmental justice. Immersed in the under-explored bathymetric setting of South Africa, the book draws from a depth of activist voices, perspectives and knowledges that caution us on how important past, present and future blue care is for all communities that live by, on, in and under the water.”

Ronan Foley, Associate Professor, University of Maynooth, Ireland

“This rich, transdisciplinary, and beautifully composed edited collection offers readers spaces for critical and ethical scholarship, promoting hopefulness for a justice to come. Hydrofeminist thinking is creatively shaped by storytelling inspired by art, literature, and activism, such as memories, poetry, photography, theatre, and swimming, writing, walking, and conversation. The multiplicity of local stories of Ocean/s and beaches in the South African geopolitical context in this book inspired me to slow and diffractive reading to read and read again, see, and see again, listen, and listen again, from different and entangled stories, wordings, and images. There is much to learn for international readers from this edited collection about how we become locally situated watery selves and the political and scholarly possibilities of hydrofeminist thinking for pedagogical creativity and environmental justice.”

Mona B. Livholts, Professor of Social Work, University of Helsinki, Finland; Author of The Body Politics of Glocal Social Work: Essays on the Post-Anthropocentric Condition (Routledge 2023)

Tamara Shefer is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. She primarily writes about young people, gender and sexualities. She currently focuses on post-qualitative, feminist, decolonial scholarship, including thinking with oceans for alternative knowledge and ethical living.

Vivienne Bozalek is Emerita Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, and an Honorary Professor at the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL) at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. She currently focuses on post-qualitative feminist, new materialist and post-humanist scholarship.

Nike Romano teaches history and theory of design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa. Her artistic research interests explore the relationship between thinking, making and doing through a post-humanist and feminist new materialist frame.

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