Taking UNRULY beyond the Cape Peninsula

Why beyond the Cape Peninsula?

Many places along South Africa’s coastline face challenges related to baboons. Each situation is unique — shaped by local geography, troop dynamics, and community relationships — but what often feels similar is the sense of division and conflict, especially within communities themselves.

The Unruly Natures project is limited to Cape Town, but we want to ensure that Unruly can live on, independently of us, because of the overall positive response it has received so far. From what we have seen, the story and performance can stimulate learning about different viewpoints, caring for others, and imagining different ways of being with one another. While Unruly isn’t about finding a solution to everything, it might serve as a tool to help communities work with complex, divisive issues and practice empathy across differences.

Four screenings, four communities

Over the past few months, we organised screenings in four communities where baboons are regularly present:

• Genadendal – 1 December 2025
• Greyton – 2 December 2025
• Kleinmond – 29 January 2026
• Hermanus – 30 January 2026

Each screening was followed by an informal conversation that would let us (Kinga and Johan) learn about how the play landed. Audiences brought up a range of topics: we heard from both people who shared their views about how to coexist peacefully, create healthy boundaries, and many ideas in-between. Together we explored questions including, how the language people use towards each other such as ‘baboon huggers’ or ‘baboon haters’ impacts the situation, how by-laws are or aren’t implemented and enforced, and the importance of personal self-awareness and empathy toward others. 

What struck us repeatedly was people’s appreciation for having a different type of space for dialogue. One that encourages people to sit with complexity rather than forcing anyone to take a stand — even when need for solutions and tensions are present in the room.

What we learned

These screenings were a great learning opportunity and reality check for us as a research team. We learned the importance of setting a clear framing of the project and expectations for screening at the outset, so people understand what the screening is (a space for reflection and dialogue) and what it isn’t (a problem-solving session or debate). We were also reminded that facilitating these conversations requires both skill and sensitivity — holding space for diverse voices, navigating tension with care, and resisting the urge to smooth over disagreement prematurely.

What comes next

Drawing on these experiences, we’re now developing a resource pack to accompany the film. This resource will include things like:

• Background information about the project and the play
• Facilitation guidelines for leading post-screening conversations
• Logistical considerations for organising these type of screenings

Our hope is that, with the film and this resource pack, communities will be able to create their own spaces for collective reflection where these sometimes difficult, yet important, conversations can emerge. We will make an announcement in a future blog post once the film and resources are publicly available. If you’re interested in organising your own screening in your community before then, please reach out to us at unrulynatures@gmail.com.

Other project updates

We have at least three academic papers that are our main focus at the moment, that are close to or already submitted to different scientific journals and will be shared here once published.

The Unruly Natures project in its current form is nearing its end, but we will keep this website going for at least 2026 and 2027 thanks to the research that Johan and Kinga will be doing on human-baboon relations on the Cape Peninsula. More information about this will come in a future post!