The director of Awon Boyz talks about his documentary.
Latest
A just recovery from COVID-19
COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated inequality and insecurity in North Africa’s food systems. But the roots of the current crisis can be found in the legacy of colonialism and new forms of imperialism.
The long terms prospects for women’s liberation in Egypt
One year, ten years, one hundred years on, the path for Egypt’s women has not been linear.
After Bouteflika
A 2019 attempt to prolong the regime of Algeria’s incapacitated president Abdelaziz Bouteflika inspired the Hirak protest movement. Bouteflika died on September 17, 2021, but the Hirak marches on around the world
While 282 million Africans go to bed hungry every night
More than 500 indigenous and farmer organizations across the continents have raised their voices to expose the UN’s Food Systems Summit as only advocating one food system—so they’re being silenced.
Curing the Sahara blues
Let’s talk about the role Western institutions can play in achieving climate justice in the Sahel.
AIAC RADIO
Africa Is a Country Radio continues its season focused on African club culture. Our next stop is Johannesburg with South African journalist Sean O’Toole. Listen on Worldwide FM.
Culture
Netflix Nollywood tackles political corruption in Nigeria
King of Boys: The Return of the King, a seven-part limited series of Netflix, is a sustained—if ultimately pessimistic—critique of Nigerian corruption.
Amílcar Cabral and the limits of utopianism
Antonio Tomás’ new book on Amilcar Cabral takes us back to the crucible of decolonization and permits us to assess its aspirations and limitations anew.
A legacy beyond the vintage records
The late Alemayehu Eshete, and musical contemporaries like Mulatu Astatke and Girma Beyene worked around huge obstacles to create a unique Ethiopian sound and make it global.
Even dogs are racist
A vernacular attempt at a social anthropology of dogs across three countries: Nigeria, South Africa and Canada.
A different sort of truth
Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s fiction rebukes the Orientalist images of the Muslim world that provided a rationale for the war on terror.
Capitalism in My City
The Mathare Social Justice Centre has partnered with Africa Is a Country to produce a series of posts and videos to document everyday capitalism in Nairobi. The project is funded via the Shuttleworth Fellowship awarded to Sean Jacobs.
In the second video from our Capitalism In My City project, Dennis Esikuri talks to everyday Nairobians about the current employment opportunities in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
In the first video from a series for the Capitalism In My City project, Brian Mathenge decodes what everyday capitalism looks like from the margins of Nairobi.
Politics
No two elephants are alike
The July riots in South Africa felt similar to those by Peronists in Argentina in December 2001. But Zuma’s people are moving from a much weaker position.
A terrifying vision of South Africa’s future
If South Africa’s Left can’t find a way to channel popular discontentment into the building of mass progressive movements, it will instead morph into anarchy, nativism and, inevitably, authoritarianism.
Freedom and the struggle for dignity in South Africa
Within a context of spiraling poverty and inequality in South Africa, the lessons of uprisings in the 1980s are well worth revisiting. For millions of people, their socioeconomic demands remain unfulfilled.
Appeasing disgruntled critics
Israel’s success in getting observer status at the African Union is also a sign of the growing lack of interest among African leaders in the Palestinian issue altogether.
What is Black Conservatism in South Africa
South African politics remain fertile ground for new orientations: mainly by black conservatives.
Technology
Nigeria’s Twitter ban and the resistance politics of VPNs
Anyone who cares about civil society, free speech, and human rights should find the state’s digital silencing of its citizens deeply troubling.
WhatsApp and anti-capitalism: should you stay or should you go?
Facebook and its “family” of services are a one-way street towards greater integration, data exploitation, and erosions of privacy by an increasingly monopolistic company.
More widespread than we think
Today's social movements rely on tech collectives to organize safely. But few know the history of other technologies used by earlier liberation movements.
What is whiteness to a cyborg?
Tracing the digital contours of the settler colony helps us understand how old inequalities will shape a future with artificial intelligence.