This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.
Latest
What does a museum mean here?
A dispatch from Benin City tells the unfinished story of the Museum of West African Art.
AFCON Archive
Enemies of progress
Delayed, underfunded, and undermined, this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations has exposed not just neglect but active sabotage from CAF and national federations.
Whose game is remembered?
The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.
Is AFCON a major tournament?
AFCON doesn’t need European validation to be major—it already is. But the real danger lies in how dismissive narratives shape the value of African football and its players.
Post-Afcon blues
Who else sorely misses the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations? Re-live the excitement from the stands in a short video by the AIAC team.
Culture
Minnesota was promised to us
Somalis have answered Trump’s latest racist tirade not with outrage but with a tidal wave of trolling.
Politics
Guinea’s bet on iron ore
A $20 billion iron ore mega-project is reshaping Guinea’s economy and politics, but communities in Simandou say they still lack water, electricity, and accountability.
Revolutionary Papers
A year long series on the archival remnants of African and black diaspora anti-colonial movement materials to retrieve a politics and pedagogy that challenge the contemporary cooptation of radical histories. Guest editors: Mahvish Ahmad, Koni Benson, and Hana Morgenstern from the Revolutionary Papers project (revolutionarypapers.org)
