The Centre of Excellence for Black Planetary Studies (CoE for BPS) hosted the Water Traditions Symposium in Mzamba, Eastern Cape, from 15 to 16 April 2025. This stimulating symposium invited local and international academics, practitioners, activists, and doctoral students along the Amadiba Wild Coast to engage in practices of deep learning and meditations on the indigenous and scientific knowledge that we hold about the ocean.

The symposium was part of the BPS programme’s initiative to innovatively engage the marine and coastal studies catalytic niche area. Located at the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, College of Human Sciences, UNISA, BPS is at the forefront of transdisciplinary ways of conducting marine studies.

The first day of the symposium offered panel presentations from scholars and practitioners who explored scientific issues of environmental justice and climate change, indigenous practices and beliefs that engage with water rituals embedded in traditions for healing, and, lastly, scholarly frameworks and methods for reading the ocean. This space enabled participants to think about the rivers and the oceans, the ecologies and dynamics of surrounding communities, and how we can move beyond colonial, neocolonial, and anthropocentric perspectives of looking at and living with the natural elements in a multispecies world. The symposium proceedings included the first official screening of The Glow in the Water: Stories of the Ocean, a documentary filmed and produced by BPS researchers, filmmaker Sumeya Gasa, alongside the coastal communities of Cape Town. The documentary highlighted black relations to the ocean narrated by residents of fishing communities, spiritual healers, and those who surf the chilling tides of the Atlantic Ocean.

With light showers and vast green fields setting the backdrop, on the second day of the symposium, guests hiked along the rocky terrain, through the hills of Sigidi to the warm reception of the Amadiba Crisis Committee. Attendees had a dialogue with the Amadiba community about their more than a decade-long struggles against mining interests that threaten to compromise the ecological integrity and biodiversity of the environment and infringe on the physical, spiritual, and social landscape of the community and its future generations. The activism of local communities advocating for ecological justice is central to the conservation of land and people's connections to the ocean. As a community of scholars who are committed to socioecological justice, these engagements and collaborations with local communities are imperative in advancing community-based research and the preservation of indigenous knowledge

The discussions held throughout the symposium transported attendees on voyages on the Indian Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans. They echoed the struggles of coastal communities and called for a re-orientation with the divinity and sacred potential of water bodies. As a planetary pedagogy, attendees reconnected to the earth by placing their bare feet on the sand and walking through the rugged terrain of the shoreline. This symposium was intellectually stimulating and soulful.

**By Ms Relebogile Rasodi, Mr Xolisa Gwadiso, & Prof Hugo ka Canham