Ubuntu Translanguaging: Valuing Local Languages in Community Engaged Digital Storytelling with isiXhosa-Speaking Cape Flats Residents to Address Environmental Disaster Risks
Monday, March 30, 2026 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
- Tbd event
- Cost: FREE
- Contact
- Institute of African Studies , africanstudies@cuent.carleton.ca
AIKRN Quarterly Webinar Series
The Africa Indigenous Knowledge Research Network (AIKRN) and the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University invite you to join us for:
Ubuntu Translanguaging: Valuing Local Languages in Community Engaged Digital Storytelling with isiXhosa-Speaking Cape Flats Residents to Address Environmental Disaster Risks
Speaker: Prof. Tsitsi Mpofu-Mketwa
School of Social Work, Carleton University.
How can local languages deepen knowledge co-production and strengthen community resilience to environmental disasters?
Drawing on nine isiXhosa digital stories produced through participatory research methods—including community mapping, photovoice, and digital storytelling—this webinar explores how translanguaging expands knowledge beyond English-centered frameworks. Working with vulnerable Cape Flats communities affected by flooding, drought, and fire, the project highlights Ubuntu’s values of humanism and interdependency as foundations of resilience.
Professor Mpofu-Mketwa demonstrates how validating isiXhosa and other local meaning-making modes is central to decolonial research practice and enhances community-driven approaches to environmental disaster risk.