Hydro-Rugging as Reparative Caring Encounter: Re-Membering Southern Oceanic Hauntologies

Abstract

Expanding beach clean-ups to more than just removing plastic from the shoreline, citizens are invited to dwell with the ecological crisis and its intersectional entanglements of historical injustices related to the ocean, through a tactile mending practice using collected rubbish. Public story-doing (Rodricks, Citation2024) [Towards a (strategic) sensibility of unbelonging: Full participation revisited. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1–15] is initiated by generative dialogue enabled through the material call of the collected plastic which is re-membered and mended into the Mother Hydro-rug. This making-with thinking/theorising (Haraway, 2016 [Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press]; Manning, 2016 [The minor gesture. Duke University Press]) involves re-membering erased narratives that entangle people with the ocean. Hydro-rugging fosters reparative care practices within vulnerable communities through convivial organised events that bring together people, particularly Black and Brown bodies, together to share their memories of and with the ocean. Hydro-rugging embodies the importance of active listening and acknowledging emotions (Ahmed, Citation2004) [The cultural politics of emotion. University Press], engaging in a call and response with the very fabric of beach surroundings, be it the plastic or other more-than-human elements.