Drawing together: making marginal futures visible through collaborative comic creation (CCC)

Abstract

Abstract. The article introduces collaborative comic creation (CCC) as a methodological tool. The central question it addresses is how marginalised imaginations of futures can be made visible in the context of the planned Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) in Kenya. The question assumes that infrastructure projects such as the LAPSSET corridor inscribe not only particular ways of moving into a landscape but also one specific temporality that marginalises other future-making practices. The paper participates in the ongoing debate about how imagined futures and future-making practices can be appreciated and analysed methodologically. It thus contributes to the literature on geographies of the future by drawing together conceptual insights from anthropology, infrastructure studies, and critical cartography. Based on these different approaches, the paper proposes to regard future-making practices not only in relation to contentious timelines but also in terms of lines made by moving and drawing on landscapes and surfaces. Using a review of existing social foresight methods as a basis, we describe the practical implementation of CCC. Subsequently, the analysis of one collaboratively produced comic illustrates how the method can help to visualise ambivalent and uncertain imaginations of different futures that oppose the unitary vision of modernity produced by dominant infrastructural visions of a single future. We conclude by reflecting on possible ways of developing the method further.

Boundary Objects: Engaging and Bridging Needs of People in Participatory Research by Arts-Based Methods

“…In PHR, the connections between various worlds and mutual learning are central. Boundary objects may fulfill these needs, and many boundary objects have been created within PHR to date; however, these are often not presented as such in the literature, for example comics [17], canvases [18], video vignettes [19], and narrative or visual metaphors [20]. These boundary objects are often material artworks, collaboratively made by participants living in marginalized situations, whose faces and voices are unseen and unknown.…”

Mehr-als-menschliche Geographien. Schlüsselkonzepte, Beziehungen und Methodiken

“…Eine solche alternative Darstellungsform stellen beispielsweise Comics dar (Abb . 2), die in der Geographiewenn auch noch am Rande -einen Bedeutungszuwachs erfahren (bspw Dittmer 2010Laurier 2014;Aalders et al . 2020…”