Diamonds On The Soles of Their Feet:  Groundwater Monitoring in the Hout Catchment, Limpopo
Diamonds on the Soles of their Feet

South Africa

Diamonds On The Soles of Their Feet: Groundwater Monitoring in the Hout Catchment, Limpopo

2021 Winner Project | Engage 2021 2021 Finalist | Engage Engage Winners

Diamond on the Soles of their Feet is an inclusive citizen science project focusing on groundwater monitoring in Hout Cachment in the Limpopo province. Through graphic facilitation, storyboards and participatory methods such as network mapping and the “river of life”, the project involves actors at various levels – from local tribal chefs and municipalities to scientists, government and agricultural unions – with the common goal of improving the management of groundwater sources in rural areas. The project also actively involves citizens who are invited to gather data in remote wells. Notions of ‘polycentricity’ – multiple layers of governance – are central to this project. Read more about citizen science here.

Jacqueline Goldin

Diamonds On The Soles of Their Feet: Groundwater Monitoring in the Hout Catchment, Limpopo

Jacqueline Goldin is an Associate Professor Extra-Ordinary in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of the Western Cape, a position that is held under the UNESCO Chair for Groundwater and Society. As a ‘numerate’ anthropologist with a strong academic and extensive empirical background, she has conducted many large scale and smaller household poverty surveys and numerous long term and short term evaluations across government and community projects and programmes covering a wide range of development topics. As such, she is fully aware of data concerns around reliability, validity and sharing of data (accessibility). She is dedicated to participatory research with a strong focus on gender.