Yesterday the Unruly Natures team received some good news: our Swedish funder Formas approved our application to their Communications call. This means that we will receive some additional funds to “communicate and popularise research results regarding sustainable development for knowledge to be used and create benefit in society.” In our case, this means that we are able to take the Empatheatre show planned for June, and run a repeat tour later this year or next where we invite a wider audience (especially youth). We will also be able to document more of the research process – as well as the show itself – on video, so it can be shared more widely and used to inspire new conversations about human-baboon relations. This is thanks to a collaboration with local filmmaker Odendaal Esterhuyse, who has also documented a previous research project where Johan and Luke worked with colleagues at University of Cape Town to study water-related issues. You can see what the resulting short documentary looked like here:
We also want to take this opportunity to congratulate team member Kinga Psuik, who has been accepted as a PhD student at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST) at Stellenbosch University! CST is an interdisciplinary research centre that brings together research on sustainability, complexity, and transformation, and has collaborated for many years with Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) which hosts Unruly Natures. Kinga’s supervisory team includes Johan Enqvist (SRC), Rika Preiser (CST), and Nanda Wijermans (SRC). Her PhD will continue to explore people-baboon relationships including social dynamics in baboon-visited communities, and aim to also translate this research into processes that can help communities and baboon management.
These two good news mean that we are in a better position to make sure that we can continue researching this complex issue, and do so in a way that is as relevant to society and concerned communities as possible. We will be able to actively communicate findings and insights at least to the end of 2025, and Kinga’s PhD is funded for four years with an expected completion at the end of 2027. Importantly, it gives us a great platform to build on the work so far and take both the academic research and practical lessons further in applications for future research grants. And last but not least, we sincerely hope to continue to work with our local Advisory Board and collaborate with the residents and stakeholders that we have built up relations with in the project so far.
Unruly Natures Project 