Grafting Black Ecological Life through Creative Practice in Edinburgh

In line with the University of Edinburgh’s (2024) commitment to address its historical connections to enslavement and colonialism, this early-stage, practice-led Black ecologies research project interrogates the Institute of Geography’s specific legacies. This research aims to presence the ways in which the material production of University space is entangled with the dehumanisation of Black peoples through Caribbean plantation enslavement. In this case, through the significant historic relationship between the Institute of Geography building on Drummond Street and Red Hill Pen estate in Jamaica. This project employs ‘grafting’, a critical-creative methodology I have developed in previous research, to centre the lives of the Black enslaved individuals connected to Red Hill Pen. This early-stage project will inform my emerging research agenda using creative practice to understand Black ecological understandings of place and foregrounding transatlantic human and environmental connection. This project also informs my research-led teaching and pedagogy in Black Geographies, through a series of creative activities.