Dis/incremental Dwelling - Jamestown, Accra, Ghana (2019-2023)
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Between 2015 and 2020, the city municipality in Accra repeatedly demolished informal dwellings belonging to Jamestown beach residents to make way for a modernized Chinese-backed harbor. However, residents persisted in returning after each demolition and rebuilt their dwellings to continue fishing and engaging in convivial associative activities. Employing interviews and a participatory drawing method, I ask how the recurring, anticipatory nature of these demolition cycles impacted residents' dwelling and livelihood strategies. This work explores classic political ecological questions of access along the urban-marine boundary and incorporates postcolonial and feminist theories of radical incrementalism, social infrastructure, and everyday refusal.
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A participant's drawings of their dwellings on the Jamestown beach before and after the demolitions as part of the participatory drawing method.
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'Desertification' and the Complex Human-Environment Relationship (2014-2016)
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This research examined the spatial relationship between soil organic carbon loss and overgrazing-induced vegetation coverage in the Kalahari desert. After struggling to find a statistical relationship in spatial variance between several sample collection sites, I wrote an honors thesis on the problematic discourse of the climate change conferences and the term 'desertification.' This research thus aimed to recognize the inherent value in the production of local environmental knowledge among pastoralists in southern Botswana.
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