The Afterlife of an Environmental UN Project in Coastal Congo

In my PhD research, I will interrogate the notion of urgency itself, and how it is implicated in climate change awareness, action and interventionist development policies in the villages of Muanda and Banana, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Investigating the afterlives that may have emerged or are emerging after the expiration of a specific project implemented by the UN in Muanda, this research has four main objectives:

1: What are the local opinions about these international projects once the agents have left the field, and funding has ceased?

2: What are the last impacts of social and cultural practices and materials that have been introduced by international environmentalist agencies?

3: How have interventionist projects generated new forms of knowledge, new relationships towards the environment, and new visions about economic and ecological futures?

4: What are the emerging forms of sociality and political participation in response to environmentalist interventions in the Muanda and Banana, and how might these be considered to improve future international climate-change related policies? I am interested in utilising arts-based methodologies for this work, as well as eco-ethnography.

Doctoral Candidate: Rebecca Campbell

Before coming to KU Leuven, I received a double B.A in cultural anthropology and international development studies from Trent University, and a M.A in interdisciplinary studies, with an emphasis in cultural anthropology, from the University of British Columbia. Born in Canada, I have spent most of my adult life elsewhere, conducting fieldwork, working various jobs related and unrelated to anthropology, and relishing in the beauty of the earth, her creatures, and their stories. My areas of experience are: critical tourism studies, ethnography, ethnopoetry, environmental affect, South Asian studies (India), youth studies, leisure studies, mobility, and post-colonial analyses.