A Mess of Unequal Exchanges, Lessons in ‘Ubuntu’, and Recycling (Not Really) with Ruth Nyambura

00:00:00: Forget about colonialism, forget about this.

00:00:02: You keep blaming ABCD you keep blaming neoliberalism and I people like that annoy me in ways i cannot begin to describe.

00:00:11: In your soul?

00:00:13: In my soul!

00:00:13: Like it's Inoja.

00:00:15: actually we say like you know when someone is giving y'all story and they say that...you don't know what they are.

00:00:31: They are touched.

00:00:49: Hello

00:00:50: my

00:00:50: hemp wearing honeys.

00:00:51: and welcome to

00:00:52: another

00:00:53: episode of what is this

00:00:55: hot mess?

00:00:56: A podcast that kicks it with fire feminists from across the globe,

00:01:00: To have

00:01:00: conversations about the fact That The world Is hot trash right now.

00:01:04: Now as I said before we are trying new things.

00:01:07: so in This episode We're wading into the Shallowing deepening i don't know waters Of the climate crisis.

00:01:15: A topic I know fuck all about, but this is the season of getting out-of your comfort zone and when you know for all about something You have to find people who will let you be a silly goose And answer your questions with patience and kindness.

00:01:31: Enter Ruth Yambura.

00:01:33: Ruth is a Kenyan feminist an activist scholar whose work moves within the intersections of gender economy and ecology For over a decade Decade.

00:01:44: Ruth has been inside the agrarian and environmental justice movement spaces in Africa, And a wider global majority doing The big thinking as a researcher popular political educator cultural worker and more recently As a grant maker running them coins.

00:02:03: I clearly did not do my research on ruth before i approached Them because here i thought it was just climate change.

00:02:11: Meanwhile

00:02:13: Climate change is one of the issues that my work focuses on, like in terms of my political commitments.

00:02:20: So let me just start go back a little bit.

00:02:23: I identify as an eco-feminist.

00:02:26: That's one way to identify myself.

00:02:30: But if you were asking about my politics and my political commitment for liberation or justice I locate myself within the long traditions of anti-imperialism and anticapitalism, right?

00:02:42: And anti-colonialism.

00:02:43: The long histories of anti colonial, anti imperial struggles and anti capitalist struggles in Kenya ,in Africa, in the wider global south .

00:02:54: Of course across the world because we are bound together.

00:03:04: Those of us who are space nerds will know about Artemis II, a recent crude lunar fly-by mission.

00:03:11: Basically the NASA version.

00:03:12: when your friend sends you voice notes saying, babes I just drove past your house!

00:03:17: A lovely gesture that just warms my heart.

00:03:20: During this mission one astronaut said in all emptiness The whole bunch nothing.

00:03:26: we call the universe.

00:03:28: You have this oasis on Earth This beautiful place where we get to exist together.

00:03:35: And this is the truth, We really are a squad on this giant pebble hurtling through space and The Climate Crisis Is putting This house that we share in jeopardy.

00:03:45: But this isn't anything new.

00:03:49: The climate crisis It's not a crisis waiting to see in the next thirty years.

00:03:56: We have seen and we continue in the Indian Ocean Coast, Madagascar, Comoros.

00:04:08: We've been seeing the floods in Mozambique and Malawi also where you are in South Africa The floods that have been happening in Pazulu Natal In the last few years.

00:04:20: we saw the flood in Kenya two years around this time actually.

00:04:25: so we're seeing also the rapid desertification that is happening across the continent of Africa, but also we are seeing right?

00:04:34: The continuation of an equal power relations.

00:04:36: This is where again go back to my work and the location around imperialism that legacies of colonialism were.

00:04:45: the continent have.

00:04:45: Africa has produced at least in the context off emissions yet the very, very worst effects and impacts of climate crisis.

00:04:59: And negotiations that we see in multilateral spaces such as the UN.

00:05:05: According to Human Development Report The global minority is responsible for about half all emissions since the Industrial Revolution.

00:05:14: Privileged lifestyles in Europe, North America and other nations in the global north produce a carbon footprint one hundred times greater than that of the world's poor nation combined.

00:05:27: Like look I put poor in rabbit ears because what is this global slander?

00:05:31: What is this Global Slander please!

00:05:33: Now i'm not sure who was getting called Poor In This Case And I frankly do Not Care For It.

00:05:39: But The Example Still Stands.

00:05:41: A few are using up the lion's share of The Good Grace we have built on this Mother Earth.

00:05:47: It really is a case of having a really,

00:05:50: really

00:05:51: messy set of housemates which sucks!

00:05:53: it's like in university when you wake and your roommates had like a massive party And place just littered with cups cold pizza.

00:06:02: What looks an illegally commandeered goat from local petting zoo?

00:06:09: But Ruth tells us before we can tackle what we think is coming in the future, We have to look back.

00:06:15: Way Back!

00:06:17: Back In Time.

00:06:20: Because I'm just like you.

00:06:22: don't address The climate crisis about diversity crisis environmental crisis if You do not pay attention To history and If you Do Not Pay Attention to the long lines of History the idea that you appear again, that you appeared in twenty-twenty six and it's just a crisis here.

00:06:41: I mean think about like in terms of our relationship right?

00:06:45: You don't just wake up with a morning and you break up.

00:06:48: obviously there has been crises whether both of you have acknowledged or not.

00:06:53: The reality is they've had a crisis.

00:06:55: so i think for us to fully understand, first is the understanding of their crisis to make sense of it but also to plot.

00:07:07: The spaces as sites build a tools for resistance and to build other worlds.

00:07:13: that deep history's important.

00:07:16: Ruth dives into how this climate crisis themed inequality has been ingrained for a hot minute.

00:07:23: This crisis and its genesis again are not new Buckling kids because school is in session introducing dependency theory.

00:07:34: This is sort of like a conceptual theoretical framing.

00:07:38: so to begin with I mean if you're going History and history is very, very important.

00:07:46: There's a very big problem where people arrive to twenty-twenty six And they're talking about the impacts of that climate crisis environmental crisis as if it started in Twenty twenty six.

00:07:58: again going back to why for me anti imperialism Anti capitalism are such such grounding an important frames from my work.

00:08:08: so we have something called, you know dependency or dependency theories.

00:08:15: Dependency theories this are basically just to put it I don't want let me not get too like academic journal paper but the core of dependency theory is that countries in the global south right?

00:08:34: Have historically especially because of our colonial, the histories of enslavement.

00:08:40: The transatlantic slave trade.

00:08:42: if you're talking about the continent of Africa then you go to colonialism.

00:08:47: Then you go a new colonialism right?

00:08:51: If your thinking with Krumah for example and thinking about impacts on neoliberalism in their last forty-fifty years dependency basically says that countries in global south have historically been sites of extraction for the global north, right?

00:09:08: And they continue even after independence.

00:09:11: The flows of resources continued to be the same.

00:09:15: so that main framework is there's always an unequal exchange between the Global North and the Global South where we constantly are producing raw materials, the resources but even labor.

00:09:30: remember yes So you have this system.

00:09:34: We talk about environmentally and equal exchange, right?

00:09:39: And this now is where we specifically focus on the environment or environmental commons if I should call them that.

00:09:46: By commons i mean you know.

00:09:48: to think about the idea of the commons it's like when we think about water.

00:09:52: This is our heritage.

00:09:54: Nobody makes water Right!

00:09:56: We found what this continent.

00:09:58: When we think About seeds You know your grandmother seeds This is, you know the seeds are...the collective knowledge of women in villages across Africa who have through thousands.

00:10:13: Who knows?

00:10:14: Thousands of years!

00:10:15: right, bred the seeds that they are scientists.

00:10:18: Right?

00:10:18: That have always shared these seeds...that this seed has been used in ceremonies during birth doing you know naming ceremonies.

00:10:28: You read about a rich history of Africa where when women were getting married from one region to another their mothers would send them with seeds you know, from their region.

00:10:38: You know beans.

00:10:39: I mean there are beans all over Kenya.

00:10:41: but then imagine getting married and your mother sending you with beans from Kerenyaga.

00:10:46: if you're getting married in Western Kenya the same thing happening right.

00:10:50: that beautiful exchange of co-weaving politics or ecology where it is about sharing Right?

00:10:57: It's about community.

00:10:59: And now we have told.

00:11:00: I mean, we're told that you know.

00:11:04: That's stupid and of course it is a long history of colonialism where African farmers, African people have been told that You need to get into the modern world.

00:11:13: It was stupid To farm.

00:11:16: Now if people think that you can't even steward the land they found on Like coming in my house talking shit like Coming In My House Right?

00:11:25: Why

00:11:26: are they going to invite you into the big, fancy conversation with a delicate finger foods in The Big Glass

00:11:32: Houses?

00:11:33: Like so.

00:11:33: this is where I assume A lot of climate conversations Are held.

00:11:38: In big glass buildings like...I think it's kind-of for the brand.

00:11:43: It's just keep it on brand.

00:11:45: But people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and what that means in This context.

00:11:50: i will not be expanding further but I still maintain people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

00:11:57: I asked Ruth thoughts on how some people are not being invited to the climate change chat?

00:12:03: I believe an agency, for example.

00:12:08: and that's why do what i do?

00:12:09: right...I'm not going to go out quietly you know..that whole thing.

00:12:13: You will not go silently

00:12:14: into the night.

00:12:15: No no!

00:12:15: I am NOT gonna do that.

00:12:17: Our People have always resisted.

00:12:20: The brave men and women of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army.

00:12:25: And I say stuff with that before, if i say them out loud because people talk about their mouth but they name was The Kenyan Land and freedom army.

00:12:32: Because again going back to like my freedom commitments right?

00:12:36: My commitments To the land by the land it is a signal Of Commitments too Right!

00:12:41: The commons What we you know That what We share collectively as A People.

00:12:47: So we've always resisted.

00:12:49: so my work stands on the shoulders, right?

00:12:53: Of those who have always resisted.

00:12:55: Those were always dreamt of a different kind of politics and there are very many examples across the continent of Africa both past and present of movements or people...of movements eco-feminist movements.

00:13:08: you know the Maasai in the Ngorongoro was struggling against the continued dispossession from their land first by the colonial encounter and now we're told that they have to leave their land so that luxury to our companies, game hunting can exist.

00:13:25: That somehow the Maasai's who've been all over the land for centuries or thousands of years apparently don't know how take care of the land.

00:13:34: And you must let this investors from West Asia Emirates and so on come in you know, in Europe and America.

00:13:43: come in.

00:13:44: And steward the land for them right?

00:13:47: I see they have not been able to steward that land but which of course obscures a real crisis!

00:13:53: The crisis isn't?

00:13:54: you know, isn't that the Maasai are not able to steer their land?

00:13:58: And by the maasai I'm using it as shorthand to describe the situation across the continent of Africa.

00:14:04: The situation is because of capitalism.

00:14:07: there's a strain on land and resources.

00:14:10: under capitalism we can share things equally.

00:14:14: someone has to make billions then one million have to share ten shillings

00:14:23: Like everything else, we need to think about this through a political lens.

00:14:27: Just because we are all affected by the climate crisis doesn't mean it is that simple.

00:14:32: It's far more nuanced than We're all in this together.

00:14:40: There's a way in which policy can also be very apolitical and very historical.

00:14:45: And it'll just sort of feed into the colonial narratives, neoliberal narratives about resources around their land so on and so forth.

00:14:56: The way my neuro-spicy brain works is I need to know

00:15:00: what to do.

00:15:01: That's

00:15:01: always why i've watched climate justice realm from afar.

00:15:05: It has always felt like

00:15:06: a lot.

00:15:08: What am I supposed to do?

00:15:09: Sure, I can recycle.

00:15:11: But then you hear that the coral reef is disappearing and your like oh for

00:15:14: goodness sake!

00:15:16: but...I

00:15:17: am an adult And The Children are the future according to Whitney Houston.

00:15:21: So i asked Ruth what Can I do?

00:15:25: Also warned her she better not just tell me to recycle.

00:15:30: So I'm going to tell you something that's gonna irritate me this morning.

00:15:33: It is so funny because...

00:15:35: You told me

00:15:38: about recycling, and it was something that I just... I don't know, funnily enough i randomly thought of yesterday but its work had done years before working for doing some work with this collective That focuses on plastics And all that.

00:15:54: Do you know?

00:15:54: the majority of what's called recycling?

00:15:59: Again which I'm going back to look at the power relations and power imbalance.

00:16:05: A majority of what we're told is recycling actually gets dumped in the global south.

00:16:13: Yes, countries in Europe or the US simply put all this trash into ships and send them to the global South mostly Southeast, basically Asia.

00:16:29: So you have the Philippines, you had China a few years ago.

00:16:32: I think this was something like five or six years ago just before COVID- I think in twenty nineteen there is very big scandal according to the global north because China has put into place new measures where they are no longer accepting your trash.

00:16:49: so alot of these recycling stuff actually ends up.

00:16:52: Very little gets recycled and recycling.

00:16:57: But we have to go back to the politics of production, right?

00:17:01: And in a world where especially in the global north there is literal overconsumption.

00:17:07: Quick PSA about that whole thing... ...about having messy roommates.

00:17:11: According to studies in twenty nineteen The top ten percent of global emitters with seven hundred and seventy-one million individuals were responsible for about forty eight percent Of global CO two emissions while the bottom fifty percent, three point eight billion individuals were responsible for almost twelve per cent of all emissions.

00:17:36: This is because people be needing the Labooboo's and iPhones at a constant switch up of clothes on The Laboos and also Stanley Cups.

00:17:44: Okay I have a Stanley Cup but you know what i'm saying?

00:17:50: Electronics are dumped in Somali coast Right?

00:17:54: And also the West African coast, Ghana.

00:17:58: There's a really big movement in Ghana that has actively fought against the damping of electronic waste from the global north and off course.

00:18:07: you know.

00:18:07: they have health impacts beyond environmental impact.

00:18:10: They have health effects.

00:18:11: higher cases of you know of cancers In these places because of the dumping of the waste.

00:18:18: All right at least the instant answer was not recycle because loud.

00:18:25: This is not to say that people should not recycle, they shouldn't try there.

00:18:28: you know I think it's quite important.

00:18:31: i'm not saying that just because of that.

00:18:33: oh throw things out the car and do whatever they really want to do.

00:18:37: That's Not The Point but the point Is At Their Wider Structural Questions.

00:18:42: So Now Back To Like.

00:18:44: What Can Be Done?

00:18:46: Again It's Telling Each Other Uncomfortable Truths like Right, about how the world actually functions.

00:18:54: because you'd be so surprised.

00:18:55: I mean not surprised but that's what power does Majority of us don't understand how the word functions How deeply and equal The World is?

00:19:08: And thats why You'll hear people say again going back to like Why blame colonialism?

00:19:13: Why blame capitalism?

00:19:14: Why not just focus on individual effort.

00:19:17: Why not just like plant your own small garden in your balcony as if everybody has a balcony or you're small garden, or your small plot of land in the village?

00:19:27: As if people have land on our continent where increasingly right...as I said i began with a land question.

00:19:34: Increasingly people are being forced to become squatters on their lands so it's all reduced to individual..it's been very very individualized.

00:19:45: I am arguing for an environmental politics, a climate politics that takes class questions very seriously.

00:19:55: Right?

00:19:56: That takes race questions very serious because being racialized as black right is brown.

00:20:07: but i don't like really using people of color But im gonna use them Because

00:20:10: me too!

00:20:11: I

00:20:11: have problems with people

00:20:12: of colour.

00:20:15: We'll just use the terminologies that are being used.

00:20:18: But we're just being racialized, coming from very specific parts of the world.

00:20:25: it means something very deadly to you Being a woman in context where there's already particular forms of gendered labour expected when they reigns fail.

00:20:37: How do you feed your family?

00:20:40: When their very act of saving and selling and exchanging and sharing indigenous seeds are criminalized by laws, by seeds acts.

00:20:49: By intellectual property rights emanating from the international order that has serious impacts on you.

00:20:56: so because we're focusing very technical apolitical and technically in a very apolitic I'm not saying that technical.

00:21:05: We shouldn't focus on the technical but technical removed from political questions.

00:21:10: The political question around what is economic system?

00:21:12: Can really deliver justice?

00:21:15: Can you really deliver food?

00:21:16: can You Really Deliver Climate Justice within the context of an economic system that already renders those who are racialized, Those Who Are Classed.

00:21:26: Those Who are Gendered in particular ways as disposable right That Already Renders Them Precarious?

00:21:33: Can It Really Deliever?

00:21:34: There's No Technical.

00:21:35: You Can Bring All The Tech That You Want to bring.

00:21:37: and also tech is not neutral.

00:21:39: we know this very Very Well.

00:21:41: Tech Is Not Neutral.

00:21:43: So this idea that you bring in neutral tech and also science, the science is neutral.

00:21:50: And also very particular forms of science right?

00:21:53: You're not going to solve it.

00:21:55: underline crisis.

00:21:56: we have common but differentiated responsibilities.

00:22:00: The responsibilities around reparations for example Around being at a forefront changing and not blocking countries in the global south, when you want to remake The Global Trade Order and Global Trade Regime for example.

00:22:22: So there are very specific historical responsibilities.

00:22:26: obviously as we say common but differentiated responsibilities.

00:22:30: these are historical responsibilities But There's only so much that can be done in the Global South which is a lot also in context of like.

00:22:39: We have to resist.

00:22:40: we have to constantly reimagine a politics of the public, the politics of The Commons.

00:22:46: How do you build a shareable country?

00:22:49: how Do You Build A Shareable Continent?

00:22:54: If you read closely Wangari Mathai's life if you're doing close reading yes like it wasn't just about planting the trees.

00:23:05: It was resisting privatization as logic Right.

00:23:11: Engaging in that logic of anti-privatization, right?

00:23:15: It was her when she talked something you listen to her interviews and heard talking about.

00:23:20: You know a grandmother or mother like just basically how they?

00:23:24: How is she brought up with the ideas on their values and ideals around how we treat, you know the environment.

00:23:33: It's wider than that of course which goes back to very particular cosmologies of being Which for me is cosmologies liberation Cosmologies of Ubuntu Right?

00:23:43: Cosmology Of Utu.

00:23:46: You Know I Had To Do it!

00:23:51: School Is Back In Session My Space Kittens.

00:23:53: Today We Learn About Ubuntu And Utu which is basically a principle that walked so the notion of squad goals could run.

00:24:03: Ubuntu means humanity and pops up in some Bantu languages such as Zulu, it describes a set of closely related Bantu African origin value systems that emphasize the interconnectedness of individuals with their surrounding societal and physical worlds.

00:24:21: Ubuntu is sometimes translated as I am because we are Now, you see when view life through this lens.

00:24:29: your neighbor being an asshole is a little harder because he should know better and be better.

00:24:37: Uchu is the foundational Maori concept referring to maintenance of balance through reciprocity encompassing both return on kind deeds and retribution for injuries.

00:24:50: We are all more philosophical in words of nineties hip hop.

00:24:54: If you don't know, now you know.

00:24:57: Beep!

00:25:00: Right?

00:25:01: This is where we go back to and we already have very beautiful templates across Africa, across the global south.

00:25:08: We already have these templates And we can co-create more templates.

00:25:13: African knows things...we

00:25:15: truly

00:25:16: do.

00:25:17: Research has shown that even though The climate crisis Is trying to absolutely spin Anke us!

00:25:23: The African continent has come up with some ways to adapt.

00:25:28: One piece of research from twenty-twenty one speaks about the climate change related challenges faced by five african indigenous communities, the Afar, Burana, Endorois, Fulani and Hadza And how they are handling their business.

00:25:45: Some solutions included temporary migration, livestock diversification in mobility Rainwater harvesting, beekeeping and camp shifting.

00:25:55: They had ways of dodging the problem that is being dumped on their doorstep.

00:26:00: And as Ruth says figuring out a way of broadening the approach to climate crisis Is key because these are legit pieces of wisdom.

00:26:09: Remember notions of Ubuntu & Utu.

00:26:11: show us we really

00:26:13: do need

00:26:14: To see this as collective solution.

00:26:18: Transnational transversal solidarities are very, very important.

00:26:24: Whether you're working around labor justice environmental justice feminism queer politics look it's ultimately the same struggle in the context of the structures of oppression.

00:26:36: the modes of oppression The ways in which they flow across are similar, sometimes if not the same.

00:26:45: Then beyond our small cocoons of movements we also have to build this transnational transversal forms of struggle.

00:26:54: and you know...

00:26:55: So just like your current situation it's complicated.

00:26:59: The climate crisis is not just that.

00:27:01: the ozone layer is thinner than the material of sweatpants in a dude's Instagram thirst trap.

00:27:06: If You Know You Know It Is SO MUCH MORE.

00:27:11: It's an intersectional, context-driven messy dumpster fire of a situation with many moving parts and competing interests.

00:27:18: So make sure you approach it as such!

00:27:21: Next week we have

00:27:23: Raj coming to chat about the link between climate crisis and mental health because plot twist

00:27:29: there is one

00:27:30: Of course they are things to read.

00:27:32: so check out links in show notes for all bits & bobs.

00:27:37: Shout out to the Global Unit for Feminism and Gender Democracy of The Heinrich Bohr Foundation that is still hosting this podcast.

00:27:45: Guys, the con continues!

00:27:47: And also shoutout my mix-and-mastering team Ray & Sheldon For That

00:27:52: Post

00:27:52: Apocalyptic Production.

00:27:55: Thank you all.

00:27:56: so too Cam Don't piss me off Smith For being a mega mind and giving some good research.

00:28:02: So I look like i know what im doing Till next episode.

00:28:07: Use solar energy to charge your sex toys, take the bus to sea bay or start a small community garden to impress you crush with your GC tomatoes.

00:28:16: Because y'know what?

00:28:17: It's all chaos anyway and this is NOT the apocalypse we signed up for!