“It's Digital- your time is over old man”

This little story acts as a red thread in our fieldwork results, or as people see a driver of the changes and resulting conflicts they are seeing. It is also a hope or a goal to move towards in terms of practise e.g. fishing and farming. A lot of hopes and expectations for the future are based on becoming materially modern.

This is the first story in the new podcast Tales of Change from Kwale Coast, part of communicating the science of the FoRel Project.

This action-research project is about understanding and exploring people’s daily practises and relationships in the changing tropical coastlines of the Western Indian Ocean. Specifically how such practises and relationships can be thought of as tools to enhance abilities to act and adapt to the changes in their environment. One of the major changes that coastal groups face is climate change, so the project takes a special interest in the impacts and challenges it presents. Coastal communities in East Africa do however face multiple challenges that threaten their well-being, perpetuate inequalities and lead to unsustainable management of natural resources. An important part of FoRel is using forum theatre to explore these interlinked changes, a type of participatory theatre created to get the audience involved and empower them. This project wants to use such theatre in Kenya and Mozambique in the hope it can boost people’s abilities to act together in dealing with the different changes the climate and their social systems present to them. Over the last 2 years (2019-2021) Forel has been carrying out interviews and group discussions with actors of different types, like fish traders, food vendors, tourist operators, fishers, community leaders, retailers etc. in different villages in Kwale County in Kenya and Inhaca Island in Mozambique. With the information from these methods the scripts of the theatre have been designed and we have been able to get to know more about their lives- specifically what changes people have experienced, their hopes and expectations for the future, how they go about their daily practices. The following stories in this podcast are put together based on interviews and focus group discussions done in Southern Kenya.

Find transcripts to all episodes at the project website (https://forumrelational.org/)

Digital times

Tales of Change from Kwale CoastBy Liz DONDec 03, 2021