Sustainable Sudan and ArcGIS story maps; graffiti and environmentalism for the future, Joshka Wessels

Abstract

This seminar will discuss work in progress of a Field Grant that Joshka received from the French Institute in Khartoum, Sudan (CEDEJ) and is related to two main thematic research areas 1) the study of social movements and 2) the ongoing political, economic and social configurations. Just when the world was convinced that the Arab uprisings of 2010/2011 were dead, the year 2019 experienced new and renewed, and surprisingly successful, mass protests in the MENA region. The 2019 revolt in Sudan is seemingly the most successful uprising in the Arab world until date from this second wave of protests. The Sudanese revolution of 2019 brought together a nationwide group of Sudanese youth who want change in their country. Based on ongoing research in Sudan, the seminar reflects on the various components of Sudan’s revolution which ousted its dictator Omar Al Bashir after decades of authoritarian rule. In the words of its own revolutionaries this is thanks to a strong commitment to non-violent values, a vibrant artistic public sphere on the streets and its connection to online digital dissidence. To give a broader perspective on the ongoing social movements in Sudan, this study explores the role of young environmental activists in the Sudanese Revolution more in-depth. In particular, the study of the Sudanese environmental movement and its relations with the Sudanese Revolution of 2019 and the ongoing transformations at political and social levels aimed at sustainable development.

Since the establishment of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Khartoum as early as 1977, Sudan has known a growing body of environmentalists who have been active in Sudan. In the revolution of 2019, a younger generation of educated environmentalists, both academics and activists, took the opportunity to make their voices heard. These visions for change can be seen and observed in the large body and collections of graffiti art and mural paintings throughout the public space in the city of Khartoum. Some of these murals give a clear picture of how the revolutionaries see and envision the Sudan they want to build (‘Hanabniho’ = ‘we will build’). The Hanabniho Youth Initiative (مبادرة حنبنيهو الشبابية) is one of those groups who emerged during the Sudanese Revolution with the aim to clean, rehabilitate the common areas and take care of the environment. Through extensive photographic documentation of revolutionary graffiti street art, ArcGIS storymaps and interviewing young revolutionaries and environmentalists in combination with organizing collaborative visioning workshops, this study documents past and future visions of Sudan’s revolutionary youth. Environmentalist communities and Sudanese revolutionary youths will be given the prospect to develop feasible Sustainable Future Youth Plans together that can be practically implemented in the short and long term.

Keywords: Urban Street Art, Graffiti, Communication for Change, MENA region, Arab Revolts, Sudan.

Biographical note

Joshka Wessels is a documentary filmmaker and Senior Lecturer in Communication for Development at the School of Arts and Communication (K3), Faculty of Culture and Society.

She teaches at the MA degree course on Communication for Development (ComDev) and is currently carrying out two Swedish Research Council-funded research projects on 1) Resilience in Urban Sudan and 2) Syrian Refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Sweden. She is in the final stages of an ethnographic film project, with support from the Crafoord Foundation, documenting life histories of Syrian refugees over a period of 20 years. In 2019, she published a landmark book on the history of Syrian Documentary cinema and video activism with IB Tauris/Bloomsbury UK.

Joshka is a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Syrian Studies (CSS) at Saint Andrews University in the UK and affiliated researcher to the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) and the Virtual Reality Lab, both at Lund University in Sweden. She has a MA in Visual Ethnography, from Leiden University, PhD in Human Geography from the University of Amsterdam and has carried out postdoctoral research at Lund University on hydropolitics in the Jordan River Basin and the University of Copenhagen on Syrian video activism.

Between 1997 and 2002, she lived in the Old City of Aleppo and carried out visual ethnographic fieldwork in northern Syria and Damascus country-side, for her PhD dissertation.

Her work has been published in The Conversation, Open Democracy, the Middle East Institute, the Middle-East Journal of Culture and Communication, Middle-East Critique, Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, Hydrological Sciences Journal and the International Journal of Environmental Studies.