The research partnership between the Critical Urbanisms M.A. program and the Lamu Youth Alliance is fostered in the space of the University of Basel course “Site Immersions.” Unlike other university courses however, our encounters with the people and places that make up Lamu constitute the classroom where this course unfolds. Such a format demands innovative methods and practices of teaching that exceed typical instruction formats to meet diverse learning expectations and objectives.

Punda Pedagogy emerged as an experimental pedagogical project rooted in a commitment to teaching by doing research and sharing with students, by way of example, the evolution of research design, the implementation of different methods, and the analysis of findings related to Lamu’s donkeys or punda in Swahili. What began as an off the cuff, tongue-in-cheek suggestion of a potential research topic quickly became a research project in its own right, led by the 2024 course instructor Maren Larsen.

Pedagogically, the real-time evolution and practice of investigating the myriad ways that donkeys affect and are affected by everyday urban life and city development on the island provided the instructional content of seminars and workshops. Teaching how research design, questions, and intentions were interacting with the realities of fieldwork to advance, alter, or challenge them opened up the space for honest discussions about the ups and downs, twists and turns that our individual and collective inquiries were taking in situ. Punda Pedagogy thus affords student researchers glimpses into different realities of how the research process unfolds and is shaped by different positions, events, and constraints that are usually not divulged in methodologies or final outputs of scholarly work. Beyond fieldwork, fieldnotes from the project were opened up and analyzed in and through creative writing exercises, providing a real-life and relatable example to guide student researchers’ own analytical and creative practices. 

“The seminars and workshops were very useful since everyone gets to learn from each other and exchange ideas.” – LYA member

This research-teaching project not only accompanied student researchers as they designed, implemented, and analyzed their own research projects, but was reciprocally accompanied by students. Research and teaching integrated their feedback and insights from their own encounters with donkeys during their research, invited their participation in various fieldwork activities, and structured reflections and lessons for their own research projects. Some students voluntarily become participant-observers of the research and the research process itself, joining in on exploratory walks, observing interviews, attending events like World Donkey Day, and actively participating in the human labors that accompany and attend to the donkey lifecycle. 

Preliminary reflections on donkey lifeworlds in Lamu raise more questions than answers. At once rigorous and, at times, amusing, Punda Pedagogy sheds light on the multi-species entanglements and consequences of urban development in Lamu and interrogates animals as infrastructural and ecological engineers shaping urbanity and urbanization. 

“Any dinosaurian beliefs that “creative” and “analytical” are contradictory and incompatible modes are standing in the path of a meteor; they are doomed for extinction” (Richardson and St. Pierre 960)

The priorities of Lamu’s urban development priorities at once depend upon and, too often, neglect donkeys well-being (above and beyond individual cases of cruelty or abuse). The construction of stairways to reach the rapidly urbanizing interior of the island and (curb motorbike traffic), waste management challenges, and Islamic belief systems shape the opportunities and threats that this companion species and humans pose for one another.

The lessons and questions that Lamu’s donkeys draw our attention to equally provide a broader ground for reflections about how belief systems shape encounters, how different forms of labor are exploited, valued, or neglected, and how co-habitation is maintained across difference – all of which are relevant for meta-reflections on this research partnership itself.

In 2024, student researchers came face to face with the language politics of research and learned to navigate not language barriers across the partnership, but also the translation of different ideas, values, expectations, cultural norms, and knowledges. The myriad interpretations that can co-exist among different student researchers came to the fore in an introductory exercise where we juxtaposed our understandings of the same site visits and observations. Our approach to thinking about translation transcends rendering words or texts from one language into another in interview transcripts to encompass reflections about how communication can operate effectively within the research partnership and how conceptual frameworks rooted in diverse ontologies can be communicated and converted across mediums and geographies. We take particular inspiration from the shared conviction of Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne and French anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle who, despite their disagreements about the postcolonial question, agree that “all endeavors to establish communication between the different components of our planet are beneficial, because they consist in cutting down the real or imaginary barriers that fragment our world.” (2000, 6).



Linguistically however, we remained acutely aware and frequently discussed the risks and instances of Swahiliphone student researchers acting as interpreters in a given project at the expense of participating in or experiencing other stages and activities of the research process. Through the process, we revised certain assumptions about translation work and recognized the crucial and analytically rigorous role that translation plays in research as high concept research questions are converted into interview questions using vernacular language (Marchais, Bazuzi, and Amani Lameke 2020). We also learned that it is equally important to recognize and respect when and for whom such divisions of labor are a risk and when and for whom they can become a preferred or desired and more inclusive way of working.

“I transcribed and translated interviews or other relevant materials, as needed, facilitating understanding and data collection from non-English speaking participants and enhancing the inclusivity of our research process.”
– LYA member

The research conducted and choice of interlocuters in each project thus reflects how different research groups balanced the language skills of some with the overall division of labor in the research process. The Mpishi Hila Moshi project coped with certain linguistic challenges by relying on elements of sensory ethnography to see, touch, smell, and taste together different recipes that constitute the foodscape of Lamu’s home cooks, particularly those dishes and cooking practices that are gradually disappearing. At the final exhibit in Lamu Fort in May 2024, the research team studying Lamu’s drainage system worked with the Lamu Arts and Theater Alliance to create a bilingual, educational theatre play that explored the how community members can monitor, participate in, and advocate for improved waste management practices in the city. 

Compensation for people in different roles in the research partnership and process is a challenging and sometimes ethically ambiguous practice. The 2024 program paid particular attention to the costs (financial and intangible) that volunteer researchers from the Lamu Youth Alliance bear to participate in the partnership. Our experience brought to light the importance of increasing transparency around remuneration sums and distribution, as well as increasing compensation to better align with the time commitment and cost of living in Kenya. Additionally, the fact that women with caretaking responsibilities faced the greatest challenges to participation and that the 2025 version of the program will consist of all female research teams illustrates the necessity to continually learn, adapt, and adjust budgets to create greater transparency and more just remuneration practices.

“My biggest challenge was the money paid was not sufficient due to the living cost in Kenya being high at the moment.”
– LYA member

While all research teams learned and worked towards upholding their primary responsibility to research participants and interlocuters, financial compensation for information was a challenging terrain to navigate, shaped by competing ethical obligations, culturally specific norms of exchange, solicitations for assistance, and other context-specific challenges. Research teams were taught current best practices in anthropological field research (which rarely finds appropriate instances for paying informants or interlocuters) and significant space was dedicated to discussing the stakes, advantages, and disadvantages of monetary compensation in research in general and expectations in Lamu in particular. Ultimately, the decision to compensate or not (or rather, how to compensate participants fairly), was left to each research team. Many found that indirect forms of compensation for the time of particular interlocuters in specific positions (often in the form of some refreshment or transport fare) were responsive to the reciprocal and collaborative relationships they sought to foster. The question of remuneration in research is just that – a question; one that relies on context-specific considerations, and requires thorough and insightful justification for whichever answer or solution is proposed. In this way, the partnership curates a sensibility and responsibility to upholding research ethics as student researchers experience different dilemmas and work together to resolve them in ways that avoid harm, uphold the voluntarism of participation, and build trust.

Making such partnerships work in healthy and just ways depends on the wellbeing of all partners. During such intensive and immersive learning experiences, care work is essential labor on which the collective experience and the personal growth and development of everyone depends. It is not the responsibility of any single partner or participant, but featured in the 2024 research process as a shared practice that responsibilized all participants to each other within and beyond the demands of the research partnership, including in each other’s lives.

“Instead of teaching what power relations exist, guide participants how to recognize and best address these hierarchies. This might include practicing empathy, acknowledging privilege, sharing vulnerability and care for others” (Dimitrakou, Hilbrandt, and Ren 2024, p. 29).    

Concretely in Lamu and within the partnership itself, care work took the form of running errands for one another, acknowledging and practicing gratitude for each other’s efforts and assistance, listening to each other’s experiences without judgement, mediations to resolve conflicts and misunderstandings, and attending to each other’s illnesses, personal hardships, and grief. In difficult times, care work was often accompanied by the dual recognition of our shared vulnerability and the structures that perpetuate uneven harm and suffering. In better times, it could also be a playful practice. To overcome various frustrations and delays that came with the research schedule, the mischievous card game Frantic provided levity and reprieve, particularly in moments of unexpected or extended waiting. 

Dedicated times and spaces for acts of care to be initiated and practiced are built into our partnership. Tuesday dinners at the Lamu Youth Alliance among all participants and juice nights hosted by and for University of Basel student participants allow for lighter moments as well as the deepening of connections between participants.

“My teammates were always there for me.”
– LYA member