Recently, Dr. Marc Epprecht and Dr. Rebecca Hall, alongside DEVS MA alumna Oarissa Riddoch, returned from a research trip in Lephalale, South Africa.
Dr. Epprecht and Dr. Hall's current research project, Futures of Care (SSHRC Insight Grant 2022-2027), is driven by the experiences and aspirations of Indigenous and South African communities in mine-affected areas, flipping the script from communities as “impacted” to communities as “agents”. In Canada and South Africa, resource extraction is central to economic development and the political imaginary. While both countries are over-represented in global extractive industries, they are also characterized by community-based resistance to extraction and alternative relations to land and modes of resource governance, often practiced by women, Indigenous peoples and people of colour.
This is a research partnership co-led with Dr. Allison Goebel, Dedats’eetsaa: The Tłı̨chǫ Research and Training Institute, Hotii Ts’eeda (Northwest Territories, Canada), the Society, Work and Politics Institute (South Africa), and collaborating researchers and graduate students.