Teaching environmentality: An ethnographic study of an aquarium’s environmental lessons in Cape Town, South Africa

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dc.contributor.advisorVan Wyk, Ilanaen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorSanderson, Daynien_ZA
dc.contributor.otherStellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology.en_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-23T11:53:57Z
dc.date.accessioned2023-01-16T12:53:16Z
dc.date.available2022-11-23T11:53:57Z
dc.date.available2023-01-16T12:53:16Z
dc.date.issued2022-03
dc.descriptionThesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, I focus an ethnographic lens on the non-profit arm of one of Cape Town’s most iconic institutions, the Two Oceans Aquarium (TOA). Like a number of other aquariums and zoos across the world, the TOA frames itself primarily as a conservation and education organisation. Based on six months of fieldwork at the Aquarium’s Education Foundation and inspired by critical approaches in anthropology, this thesis interrogates the narrative and programmatic content of this framing and its imprint on a wider “witnessing public” (Chua, 2018:a). In particular, I analyse the TOA’s online mediascape and explore the various environmental classes that the Foundation offered to school children; its on-site, week-long holiday Smart Living programme and its hour-long “outreach” classes in disadvantaged areas of the City. I also analyse the motivation letters of children who applied for the TOA’s free holiday courses. My research shows that the TOA was haunted by the class and racial legacies of local (and international) conservation. I argue that in its embrace of mainstream environmentalism, the TOA unintentionally depoliticised the environmental crisis to offer solutions that trumpeted individualised new forms of consumption that either excluded poor people or framed them as environmental villains. This middle-class, prescriptive environmentalism thus reproduced messages that mapped environmental destruction onto race and class. Through the working of its hidden curriculum, the TOA’s lessons to school children repeated this message and shaped the ways in which a new generation related to the environment and “nature”; a relationship in which the privileged retained a proprietary interest in conservation, while disadvantaged children internalised their supposed culpability in environmental collapse. As I show in this thesis, the TOA was not alone in doing this work; as the children’s letters to the TOA attested, most of them had been exposed to similar messages from a much wider world of hegemonic middle-class environmentalism.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractAFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis fokus ek ‘n etnografiese lens op die nie-winsgewende afdeling van een van Kaapstad se mees ikoniese institusies, die Twee Oseane Akwarium (TOA). Soos ander akwariums en dieretuine wêreldwyd verkies die TOA om hulself hoofsaaklik voor te stel as ‘n omgewingsbewaring- en opleidingsorganisasie. Ek bestudeer die verhalende en programmatiese uitdrukking van dié voorstelling en die impak daarvan op ‘n groter ‘meelewende publiek’ (Chua, 2018:a) vanuit ‘n kritiese antropologiese oogpunt. Gebaseer op 18 maande se etnografiese veldwerk by die TOA se Opvoedingstigting, analiseer ek die TOA se aanlyn medialandskap en die verskeie omgewingsbewaringsklasse wat die Stigting aangebied het aan skoliere. Die laasgenoemde sluit in die Stigting se weeklange Smart Living vakansieklasse wat op die TOA perseel aangebied is sowel as die Stigting se uurlange “uitreik” klasse wat aan minder bevoorregde skoliere in hulle skole aangebied is. Ek analiseer ook die motiveringsbriewe wat kinders aan die TOA geskryf het ter stawing van hulle aansoeke om die TOA se gratis vakansieprogram by te woon. My navorsing dui daarop dat die TOA se omgewingsbewaringslesse uitdrukking gegee het aan die klasse en rasse nalatenskap van plaaslike en internasionale omgewingsbewaring. Ek argumenteer dat in die TOA se napraat van hoofstroomnatuurbewaringsbewustheid, die organisasie onwetend en onbedoelend die omgewingskrisis gedepolitiseer het. As sulks het die TOA se oplossings vir die krisis ‘n vorm van individuele verbuik voorgestaan wat arm mense of uitgesluit het of hulle as skurke in omgewingsbesoedeling uitgebeeld het. Hierdie middelklas voorskriftelike omgewingsbewaringbewustheid het dus omgewingsvernietiging geskool op ras en klas kategoriee. Die TOA het hierdie boodskap herhaal in hulle klasse aan skoliere deur die werking van hulle versteekte kurrikulum. Sodoende het die TOA deel gehad aan die skawing van ‘n nuwe generasie en hulle verhouding met die ‘natuur’ en met omgewingsbewaring; ‘n verhouding waarin bevoorregtes omgewingsbewaring aan hulself toegeeien het as ‘n verdiende erfenis en waar minderbevoorregte kinders hulle vermeende skuld aan omgewingsineenstorting geinternaliseer het. Die TOA was nie alleen in die taak nie, ‘n feit wat duidelik vorendag gekom het in die kinders se aansoekbriewe aan die TOA; hulle was reeds blootgestel aan die hegemoniese werk van middelklas omgewingsbewustheid.af_ZA
dc.description.versionMastersen_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/126162
dc.language.isoen_ZAen_ZA
dc.publisherStellenbosch : Stellenbosch Universityen_ZA
dc.rights.holderStellenbosch Universityen_ZA
dc.subjectTwo Oceans Aquarium (Cape Town, South Africa)en_ZA
dc.subjectAnthropology -- Fieldworken_ZA
dc.subjectEnvironmentalismen_ZA
dc.subjectCommunity-based conservation -- South Africa -- Cape Townen_ZA
dc.subjectEthnologyen_ZA
dc.subjectEducation -- Secondary -- Curricula -- South Africa -- Cape Townen_ZA
dc.subjectVillainsen_ZA
dc.subjectScience -- Study and teaching (Secondary)en_ZA
dc.subjectInformation literacyen_ZA
dc.subjectChildren -- South Africa -- Cape Town -- Social conditionsen_ZA
dc.subjectUCTD
dc.titleTeaching environmentality: An ethnographic study of an aquarium’s environmental lessons in Cape Town, South Africaen_ZA
dc.typeThesisen_ZA
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