Drinking Camomile in Palestine: Dischronotopic Land-based Ecologies

On January 22nd, at 5pm, The Department of Digital Humanities at KCL welcomes Rachel Clarke from London College of Communication. Students and staff are invited to attend and should register below.

Blurb
In this talk I draw from literary fiction to explore design within dischronotopic land-based ecologies (Moore, 2017). I propose this as an alternative way of conceptualising the co-existence of multiple conflictual relationships with time in the context of contested indigenous rights to land (Copley, 2019; Pugliese, 2020). The discussion focusses on a design case study working with indigenous community activists in the South Hebron Hills of the Palestinian West Bank. The community live adjacent to an Israeli settlement highlighting how different ways of ‘being in and of the land’ and ‘living on the land’ come into tension where multiple ancestral rights are claimed (Clarke et al., 2022).

I take the act of sharing camomile, sharing its meaningful associations in conversation and drinking it as part of a tea ritual, as one approach to both ground and layer experiences (Soares, et al. 2023). Camomile, a common and often unassuming flower that grows amongst the rocky outcrops of the South Hebron hills and is picked by many communities as a medicinal herb at specific times of the year (Devet, 2012). The flower connects the community to their ancestors and the political struggle ‘sumud’ (steadfastness) that ensures they remain connected and in and of the land through quiet forms of sustaining and nourishing their activism.




Rachel Clarke is Course Leader for BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction at London College of Communication - an innovative course that develops student skills in diverse and experimental visual communication practices. Rachel is a design researcher and practitioner who combines visual communication with qualitative research, performance and storytelling on issues of climate change, sustainability and social inequality. She has exhibited work internationally and co-authored research papers across design research, human-computer interaction (HCI), and social sciences.

Prior to joining London College of Communication, Rachel was a senior lecturer in interaction design at Open Lab, Newcastle University, with a focus on developing social and environmental sustainability projects with partners and postgraduate researchers. Here she developed a passion for integrating research into a creative computing curriculum and continues to invest in research-informed teaching and learning. She recently co-edited a new book, Designing More-than-Human Smart Cities: Beyond Sustainability, Towards Cohabitation (2024) and is also an advisor for DEFRA’s Futures Advisory Group. Before joining academia, Rachel ran her own digital media company working with artists and theatre practitioners on digital inclusion and interpretation projects.