What about queer joy?
Telling one's story as a black queer person isn't yet the luxury it is chalked out to be, especially when it remains dangerous to be queer in the world.
class
Against exceptionalism
Although visibility is important, contemporary queer African literature reveals how easily representation privileges narratives of the resourceful and upwardly mobile.
Biko’s children
In their debut EP, the Johannesburg-based experimental jazz group iPhupho L’ka Biko offer a message of hope, resilience and solidarity while drawing from South Africa’s black jazz heritage.
Projecting radicalism
Noni Jabavu was one of South Africa’s most trailblazing writers. Her commitment to elite ambivalence makes it difficult to hail her as a black feminist icon.
Understanding Africa’s middle class
The middle classes of Africa are often idealized as spearheads of democratization and opponents of corrupt regimes. But what does the research actually say?
Stealing the ball
Who is the black John Kennedy? A Brazilian footballer.
The influence of the middle class
With the working classes down and out, it is arguably the middle classes that will play the more decisive role in African politics going forward.
The humiliating weight of Frenchness in Tunisia
Tunisia had sought to Arabize itself since independence and failed. It's relation to France still very much defines the country's character.
The Managers of Brazil
In the wake of the insurrection in Brazil, an Afrobrazilian reflects personally on the entanglement of race and class in the country, and on what needs to be done to unravel it.
Does class matter?
Is class still a useful category for understanding capitalism and oppression? We discuss with Vivek Chibber on our podcast. Listen.
The politics of elegance
German historian Daniel Tödt wrote a history of the Congolese évolués. In this interview, he talks about the historiographical interventions of his book and the role of Patrice Lumumba in the history of évolués.
Darra
The writer, from Cape Town, reflects on the life of her working class father, who like her friends' fathers worked tough jobs for low pay and hid his vulnerabilities.
Trapped by history
Mexican American director John Gutierrez new film, set in Cape Town, South Africa, touches on colonialism, displacement, and man’s complicated relationship with nature.
The class curse
How is Kenya's "new middle class" contributing to a pervasive low-quality oppression that leaves Kenyans feeling hopeless?
The Nigerian dream is to leave Nigeria
In Nigeria, to be an emigrant is to possess illustrious social capital and a badge of honor that is not only reserved for you, but also for your family.
The miseducation of the Nigerian middle class
Could the enduring effects of #EndSARS be the beginning of a broad alliance against an irresponsible political elite that has shirked all pretensions of being responsible to the people?
The culture wars are a distraction
When our political parties only have recourse to the realm of identity and culture, it is a smokescreen for their lack of political legitimacy and programmatic content. It is cynically unpolitical, and it’s all bullshit.
What washerwomen would say on a webinar
Regular Kenyans try to survive the economic fallout from the coronavirus.
Ending the polarization around South Africa’s lockdown
In South Africa, we are not in a situation where we need to choose between saving lives and protecting livelihoods. It is far worse. We are in danger of losing both.
Ghana responds to the coronavirus
Demolishing homes of poor residents in Accra while under lockdown, tells us all we need to know about the Ghanaian state's treatment of working class people.