The ecopolitics of water pollution and disorderly urbanization in Congo‐Basin plays

Abstract

This essay explores the ecopolitics of water pollution and land (ab)use through disorderly urbanization in two plays from the Congo Basin. I argue that bad governance, in the form of absented-absence and corruption-plagued presence, leads to the double violation of human rights and the rights of nature through water pollution and haphazard urbanization. In other words, I use two plays to suggest that political absence and bad governance amount to governmental responsibility for ecological vulnerability manifested through freshwater pollution and unregulated urban expansion. In the first part, I suggest that the government's failure to provide potable water to its citizens leads to water pollution, violations of the rights of nature and the human right to water and sanitation, as well as disregard for the entangled relations between humans and nature in Ekpe Inyang's Water Na Life ([2002] 2006). In the second part, I use Henri Djombo's Le mal de terre (2014) to examine urban sprawl and its effects on the rights of nature as well as land disputes and contested claims to land as consequences of bad governance. Overall, the essay foregrounds freshwater pollution, urban sprawl, and land (ab)uses which are often neglected in ecocritical scholarship from/on Africa.

The Slow Integration of Sustainability into Contemporary Theatre and Performance Practices in Cameroon

“…The integration of sustainability considerations into theatrical activities in Cameroon seems to be timid, as we will discuss later, but environmental drama/theatre is not new on the Cameroonian theatrical landscape. Within the framework of theatre for development (TfD), alternatively called community theatre, people's theatre, popular theatre, political theatre, theatre for sensitisation, theatre for participation, theatre for empowerment and so forth (Nsah 2021b, Inyang 2016, Ngomssi 2013, Funfe 2011, Doho 2006[2002, Lamko 2003), environmental concerns have been addressed by many Cameroonian playwrights and theatre practitioners in the colonial languages of English and French since the twentieth century at least, if we exclude environmental sensitivities in the performances and rituals of Cameroonian orature, much of which predates European colonisation.…”

“…Anglophone Cameroonian playwright, poet and environmentalist Ekpe Inyang for example, has used community theatre in conservation efforts in the Bayang-Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary in Southwest Cameroon (Inyang 2016 and2015). Inyang has been instrumental in the creation of theatre clubs in some secondary schools in Cameroon and has also collaborated with other prominent earlier Anglophone Cameroonian theatre practitioners such as Bate Besong (Nsah 2021b). In published plays such as The Hill Barbers, The Last Hope, Water Na Life, and Beware, Inyang has also dealt with environmental issues (see for instance Nsah 2021aNsah , 2021bNsah , 2018.…”

“…Inyang has been instrumental in the creation of theatre clubs in some secondary schools in Cameroon and has also collaborated with other prominent earlier Anglophone Cameroonian theatre practitioners such as Bate Besong (Nsah 2021b). In published plays such as The Hill Barbers, The Last Hope, Water Na Life, and Beware, Inyang has also dealt with environmental issues (see for instance Nsah 2021aNsah , 2021bNsah , 2018.…”