As part of our Urbanisation, Planning and Development Seminar Series, Dr Kate Dawson, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, has given a talk entitled ‘Wulomei and waterscapes: Situating plastic pollution in Accra’s Anthropocene’.
The presentation explores a significant sign in the Anthropocene – that of plastic. Seen as a ‘technofossil’ and a fossil of the future, plastic pollution was examined in the context of Ghana’s capital city of Accra, and more specifically, the city’s waterscapes – or the sea and lagoons that feature prominently in the history and sacred geographies of the city’s longest residing inhabitants, the Ga.
Drawing on interview data with traditional Ga Priests (Wulomei), the presentation considered the ways in which urban settings, plastic materialities and sacred waterscapes came together in both material and discursive formation, highlighting how existing knowledge forms engaged and contested the material processes of the Anthropocene.
