colonialism

colonialism

Names to facades

While some streets in Lagos bear the names of notable nationalist leaders and pioneering early Nigerians, less is known about the everyday social milieu in which they operated.

We shall overcome

One cannot fully appreciate Kenya’s normative Christianity and its particular obsession with public piety without appreciating the legacy of the East African revival.

To honor my father

On Father’s Day, an ode to Namballa Keïta, a nurse, soldier, and seemingly ordinary man, who worked tirelessly to promote education in newly independent Mali.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

God tax the king

The British royal family has tried to shake off its colonial past. But its long reign over these wrongs was succeeded by a new form of plunder, exacted today by Britain’s tax haven empire.

The art of virtue signaling

For French President, Emmanuel Macron, recruiting various African intellectuals turned out to be a key asset in trying to shift the Françafrique narrative, while simultaneously protecting French interests on the continent.