Authors: Emma Phipps and Catherine Rawlinson 

Dr Mia Strand is a postdoctoral research fellow with Ocean Nexus, a research institute which conducts ocean equity research, and is based at the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. She is also a co-investigator on the international research program One Ocean Hub, based out of Strathclyde University in Scotland. Her research focuses specifically on equity in knowledge co-production processes, ocean literacies, and children’s rights to a healthy ocean, and centers around arts-based research methods, such as photo stories and storytelling.  

Representing South Africa, Mia is one of the 23 National Champions in line for the 2024 Frontiers Planet Prize. 

Our oceans are currently in a state of emergency with ocean heat at record levels causing events such as ocean acidification and coral bleaching. Maintaining the health of our oceans is key to ensuring that we do not cross the limits of the nine planetary boundaries. In line with World Ocean Day and SDG14 (Life Below Water), we spoke to Mia about changing the way we develop and promote ocean knowledge and ocean literacies, and how arts-based methods can bridge the gap between traditional sciences and local knowledge systems. 

Could you share with us your journey into this field of work and research, and were there any specific drivers for you to enter this area? 

“I have somehow gone full circle. My first introduction to higher education was a six-month course in global environmental management in Ghana in 2011. Afterwards, however, I decided I was not going to continue with environmental management because the course taught me just how difficult it was to get all these big parties, companies, and nation-states to come together and agree on anything. I disliked how top-down and power-skewed these processes seemed to be. I had also studied peace and conflict studies, but realized that my positionality and lack of experience with conflict first-hand made me personally uncomfortable with suggesting mediation strategies in different contexts.  

“I ended up doing a bachelor’s in politics and international relations at the University of Manchester in the UK and loved it. I wanted to further focus on development studies and the problems associated with development discourse and relationships, e.g., it’s very top-down and continues colonial legacies and coloniality in terms of perpetuating these power structures where the Global North or the West try to control aspects such as politics and trade through bilateral relationships. I then had an incredible course convenor who suggested that I apply for a master’s in South Africa.  

“That was almost 10 years ago, and I now call South Africa home. I ended up doing my master's in African studies at the University of Cape Town, focusing on how we know what we know and what is being portrayed as the truth or as science. My lecturer and course convenor, Professor Harry Garuba, was a great inspiration, and I thoroughly enjoyed my master’s. I stayed in South Africa where my research really snowballed into how we can make sure the science and knowledge that we build our decisions on, particularly in development or on a global scale, is more representative and is actually coming from the people that are being impacted by aspects such as climate change, ocean degradation, and conflict. I got excited about community-based, participatory research. People have voices already, so it was not about giving them voices, but using your privilege and power as a researcher or scientist to ensure that people who are currently not being heard or don’t have a big enough say in these global forums can have a louder voice, or a greater emphasis and influence on what we see as credible, valuable, and scientific knowledge.  

“From there, I started working with several different NGOs on youth and gender rights, like Gender DynamiX, which looks at access to gender identity rights for trans and gender-diverse identifying people in South Africa. I really saw opportunities for storytelling and arts-based methods to create a pathway that isn’t so rigid and exclusive in knowledge co-production. That experience motivated me to try out further arts-based and alternative methods to pursue more equitable and inclusive approaches to environmental decision-making, which became the research focus of my PhD at Nelson Mandela University. I looked at the participatory aspect of arts-based methods, where you make sure that the people you work with are co-researchers, rather than just research participants, and that people have ownership and power in the process of how they want to share their knowledges. This is part of the process of moving away from extractive research methodologies and the ways in which we develop and promote various knowledges.  

“I believe that we’re going to struggle to find solutions to and work together towards addressing the planetary boundaries unless we understand ourselves, and how we respond as people. The social and cultural aspects are an important part of the puzzle in figuring out how we can coexist with our planet. The ocean provides important challenges that we can learn from because it doesn’t have boundaries. It is even more dynamic and interchangeable than land – we can’t control it, so we have to be part of it and recognize our part in it.” 

You recently became a fellow at Ocean Nexus. Could you tell us a bit more about your work there? 

“I am really inspired by the team at Ocean Nexus. There’s a diverse group of people affiliated with the institute from all over the world, whose work focuses on equity in ocean governance and ocean science. A lot of my PhD looked at equity and whose voices produce knowledge and are seen as valuable, but I do think what is really needed is to dig deeper into what equity means, how it is different to equality and how it can be operationalized. How do we make sure that we are shifting the existing approaches to ocean management and ocean science that are perpetuating existing power dynamics and not necessarily leading us to approaches or solutions that are more inclusive or transformative?

"I just started my postdoc, but I’m very excited to learn from everyone at Ocean Nexus as they’ve been working on these issues for a long time. My specific research will be here in South Africa and continuing a lot of the work I have been doing with communities and with youth. What we’re seeing in ocean science and ocean governance is that women and youth continue to not have as much of a say in how we make decisions about the ocean. My work is really trying to learn from youth, what do they already know about the ocean, and what do they want to know. 

“Equity is looking at what pre-existing conditions influence people’s access to justice and fairness, and seeks to address these. In South Africa, with institutionalized racism under the Apartheid regime, peoples’ access to the ocean was limited and people were forcibly moved further away from the ocean based on their identities and race. That means that there are extreme inequalities in terms of ocean access. My research, therefore, explores the historical inequalities that continue to influence peoples’ access to ocean justice, but also to ocean space and decision making. I am currently wanting to look further into how we make sure that what we conceptualize as “ocean literacy” is understood more as an inclusive, plural concept, so ocean literacies. This involves recognizing that what we see as important and valuable ocean knowledges are based on existing Indigenous and traditional knowledge systems, as well as our spiritual, cultural, and heritage connections to the ocean. These aspects play such an important part in our own relationship with the ocean, our care for the ocean, and how we make decisions about it. This is where my work fits in. 

“I’m very excited to learn more from the rest of the Ocean Nexus team because I think work on equity and justice in ocean governance and the ocean sciences are such important topics that we really need to prioritize in our research, keeping in mind existing power dynamics and asymmetries that continue to exist through coloniality and Western views on what is seen as credible knowledge and ‘truth’.”

How important is arts-based research and projects, such as storytelling, with addressing environmental issues in local communities? 

“Art and projects based around photography, music, poetry, and storytelling have the ability to unite people across different geographies, lived experiences, or identities. In terms of storytelling, for example, we can become so captivated by a Netflix documentary, or a piece of music, that really speaks to our hearts. We are seeing more and more that this is important in order for people to really relate to their environment. 

“Including arts-based methods in research processes really allows for communicating a plurality of knowledges, narratives, and stories. We are currently very conditioned to write an essay or a journal article for a scientific audience, which means we are speaking within our own echo chambers, to people that are already based in similar fields of research. If we are going to properly address the planetary crisis and our current environmental challenges, we need to reach more people. We have so much to learn from those who are constantly impacted by these crises directly. This is especially true in reference to Indigenous Peoples and communities, and people who have lived and coexisted with the ocean and with their forests and environments for centuries. 

“Art and arts-based methods can really ‘bridge the gap’ between more traditional sciences and local knowledge systems and ways in which we relate to the environment around us. In our work, what we have found is that it can function as a medium to find common ground. By gathering around an art product, for example photo stories, decision makers, youth, fishers, Indigenous communities, local community members, and marine scientists could find a space to relate to each other in how the ocean makes them feel or how it is personally important to them. 

“We understand that, in general, decision makers will often listen to scientists. But how can we make sure that people who already have so much insight into how to better coexist and live with the planet are heard, and that their insights are taken up by scientists to inform decision makers? Everyone can be impacted by stories or by music and can be part of the change we need.” 

Arts-based methods can be an excellent method to reach a wider audience. In the UK, for example, the Natural History Museum in London hosts the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award. One popular category is the photojournalism category which illustrates how our decisions impact the natural world and is now unusually showing how humans can coexist with the planet. Most exhibitions or TV series focus purely on nature rather than how humans can live in harmony with it. 

“Think about all the people who love Planet Earth and other nature documentaries. So many of these series don’t show people, but rather a planet full of wildlife. There are so few areas where people haven’t made an impact, so finding a space for people who do have insights into how people have been coexisting with the environment for many years and how we can now is so important.” 

What can we learn from local level projects like the ones you work on, and can they be scaled up to a global scale? 

“I don’t think many can be scaled up; most need to be contextualized based on the area in which they are operating. That said, I know there are some global projects trying to elevate local champions and their work, which is important. Ocean stewards, for example, are people who really care about the ocean and do what might be ‘minimal’ things on a global scale but have massive impacts in their local communities. Yes, we need to identify how we as humans are degrading the planet, but we can also expand on existing practices and champions who are doing amazing work and make sure that they have a say on a more global scale. So instead of scaling up, there are ways of inviting people who are doing that work to global arenas and forums. I know they’ve done that a bit at COP by inviting youth organizations or local initiatives to come and speak, which I think is brilliant, as long as it doesn’t become a tokenistic exercise. What’s important is allowing them the space to share their stories and knowledge beyond their local context.  

“A lot of the work that we do is collaborative and includes non-academic collaborators and that is absolutely something that can be scaled up. There is still a lot to do to ensure that non-academic collaborators are the ones that might go and share the results and stories at conferences and in global arenas. There is space to increase access there and allow stories to be influential on a greater scale. The future should look to local- or Indigenous-led research projects, so that there are aspects that are not necessarily influenced by someone who has been trained by a Western institution.” 

You have previously mentioned that “a healthy ocean is fundamental to children’s wellbeing, and their access to sociocultural aspects are inextricably linked to a healthy ocean.” Do you think that limits on access to a healthy ocean, and ocean literacy, disproportionately affect girls as we see in other areas? 

“Absolutely, and in so many ways. In terms of gender, access is intersectional. In South Africa, we have a very specific history regarding how people have been racially segregated from beaches and ocean areas. What we see here is that it impacts girls more often than boys, limiting both physical access to the ocean and education in some places.  

“On a global scale, girls will have less access to education opportunities, or will be worse affected by climate change impacts and ocean degradation. Consequently, what we see is that women and girls will have less access to ocean decision-making. Even if they are impacted on the same scale, they will have less of a say in how to manage this. 

“This can also be seen in who has different roles within a household or community, and who might be seen as a knowledge-holder. For example, women may have more chores or responsibilities at home, so they wouldn’t have the spare time to go to the ocean, which might already be further away due to historical segregations. Additionally, on a global scale, women continue to be significantly underrepresented in academia and top published articles on climate change and sustainability science. This is why in many countries we can say there is gender 'equality,' but we are nowhere near gender equity because of the historical and structural inequalities that are still impacting girls’ and women’s access to influencing and impacting decision-making. It’s a multilayered structure of barriers, which is why it’s so important for those who work in research to fight that and create the opportunities necessary to advance equity.” 

It has been proven that climate change is disproportionately affecting communities in the Global South. How are women scientists working to change this, particularly in ocean sciences? 

“I am surrounded by brilliant women who work in ocean sciences every day, but I am always surprised when I read about how strikingly under-represented women, particularly in the Global South, are in the list of top-published scientists in the field of climate change. Furthermore, it is quite shocking how under-represented women of color and Indigenous women are in those spaces. In terms of the science, with climate change we rely on adaptation, mitigation, and resilience. Without greater representation, particularly of women from the Global South, we won’t find solutions that are representative of the majority of the population of this planet, so we have a long way to go in reaching equity. A lot of my own research scrutinizes who we rely on to tell us the science, the ‘truth,’ or the knowledge about our planet, and what we are seeing is a skewed picture of who is currently telling these stories and therefore who we are listening to. In marine science, but also across the natural sciences, for us to really emphasize equity and learning from people across the globe and who might be more impacted by climate change, we need to change those statistics.” 

The nine planetary boundaries highlight processes that regulate the Earth system. How do our oceans, and people's connections to the ocean on a local level, play a part in this? 

“For the Frontiers Planet Prize, we had to specify how our research is responding to the nine planetary boundaries. We can safely say that the way people relate to the ocean and their local environments connects with responses to climate change and biosphere integrity. This can be seen in how people relate to specific species or land system changes and how people have been learning from heritage. It is something that has very much been shaped by politics, and we must realize that we have a say in decisions which have an impact on the planet and therefore can influence the politics. When we care about something, we want to take care of it and protect it. 

“All of the planetary boundaries are relevant on the local level. For example, with the freshwater change boundary, local people don’t necessarily distinguish between the estuaries and the ocean because it is all interconnected. People who live in and around estuaries have seen that they are interconnected for generations, however often we want to manage these areas as separate entities (ocean and estuary). If we approach environmental management from a social-ecological system viewpoint instead, we begin to realize that everything is interconnected, and humans are as much a part of this system as the fish in the estuary. 

“Our research emphasizes the ways in which we might care about something, and the way in which we can begin to think differently through art. We really can’t make decisions about the ocean without understanding the underlying social and cultural dimensions that influence how people care about and connect to the ocean.” 

We often don’t see the “human side” of nature included within, say, Netflix documentaries. Do you think this affects how people relate to their natural environment? 

“I think seeing how nature is so wonderful and wild by itself is great, but if we as humans believe that we are not part of that, it can be difficult to relate and ultimately see ourselves as part of the problem or the solution. There are ways in which people can and do coexist with nature, and this can absolutely be shown more in the media and beautiful documentaries. Unless we emphasize the opportunities of sustainably caring for and coexisting with nature, we will likely continue enforcing harmful and rights-violating behavior towards protected areas that see the need to remove people from the nature in which they have lived for centuries.” 

What has been your greatest achievement in your career so far? 

“One of the most significant aspects of my research has been the opportunity to be a facilitator of bringing people together. In the context of ocean conservation, for example, which is so loaded here in South Africa in terms of its historical legacies, what I’ve really found valuable is trying to find opportunities to bring people together. Even though there might be animosity between people and institutions, it has been valuable finding a place where people can come together over exhibitions and photo stories to talk not only about peoples’ economic reliance on the ocean, but also their social-cultural and spiritual connections and the values that they attach to the ocean and coast that they live with. It’s not just about bringing in decision makers, governments, and conservation authorities, but also marine scientists who often have a significant say in the governance of marine areas. This has provided an opportunity for decision makers and scientists to engage directly with Indigenous and local knowledge holders that might not have as much representation in these processes. I think that’s the most powerful process that I’ve been part of, and what I’m most proud of. It doesn’t mean that it solved our current issues of inequity in ocean governance processes, but bringing people together and facilitating that space has been really special and we need more of it.” 

Frontiers is a signatory of the United Nations Publishers COMPACT. This interview has been published in support of the nine planetary boundaries.