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Paper short abstract

Through storytelling and lived experiences, this research explores Southern African coastal communities’ deep ties to the sea. Personal narratives reveal ancestral knowledge, cultural resilience, and ecological intimacy, showing how heritage, identity, and the more-than-human world are intertwined.

Paper long abstract

This research explores the entanglements of nature, heritage, and identity through storytelling and lived experiences of coastal communities in Southern Africa. Drawing on sensory ethnography and oral histories, it traces multiple returns to the sea across Namibia, South Africa, and Kenya, highlighting how human relationships with the ocean embody resilience, ancestral knowledge, and dispossession. First Nations communities, whose connection to the coast spans over 160,000 years, recount histories of aquatic hunting, sacred rituals, and seasonal rhythms, navigating the legacies of colonial displacement and restricted access to coastal spaces. Individual narratives embodied encounters with the ocean as acts of cultural reclamation, ecological intimacy, and identity formation.

The study observes ongoing tensions between leisure, industrial, and conservation uses of coastal lands, showing how human-nature entanglements are continually negotiated amid social, environmental, and economic change. Encounters with the more-than-human world, through ritual, play, or collection of seawater and kelp, sustain cultural continuity, foster belonging, and create spaces for meaning-making across generations.

By foregrounding storytelling, sensory experience, and personal accounts, this research highlights how heritage is dynamic, relational, and multisensory. The sea emerges as both a material and symbolic presence, shaping individual and collective identities while mediating connections between culture, memory, and environment. These insights demonstrate the transformative role of narrative and lived experience in understanding and preserving intangible cultural heritage in Southern Africa.