Sian Sullivan’s research in Namibia combines ethnography, oral history and historical texts to explore changes in environmental perceptions, practices and policies in western Namibia: see Future Pasts and Etosha-Kunene Histories. In 2021 she contributed a report on “Cultural heritage and histories of the Northern Namib” for the new Management Plan for the Skeleton Coast National Park, and was co-editor of the open access book Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis, featuring a section on Namibia with work by colleagues at the University of Namibia.

An emphasis of Sian’s work practice is to deploy different media to convey research content. She curated the multi-media exhibition Future Pasts: Landscape, Memory and Music in West Namibia, brought to COSDEF Community Arts Venue in Swakopmund in 2019. With film-maker Oliver Halsey, she is working with the Hoanib Cultural Group, the Nami-Daman Traditional Authority, Sesfontein Conservancy and Save the Rhino Trust on a series of films from oral history research: for example, The Music Returns to Kai-as.

She is pictured here with her long-term collaborator, Welhemina Suro Ganuses, from Sesfontein

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