Reading List: Dotun Ayobade
What can the lives of the women behind Afrobeat tell us about creativity, resistance, and the interplay of power and pleasure in 1970s Nigeria?
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Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
No more business as usual
What can the complete civil disobedience of the Sudanese Professionals Association teach us at a moment when belief in the efficacy of nonviolent protest is in decline?
Reading the present as history
In his debut novel, Thaer Husien remixes genre and takes readers on a psychedelic ride through a dystopian yet disturbingly familiar future Palestine.
The Nigerian people must own their resistance
When rising against ruling-class corruption, Nigerians must reject the hero culture that has historically undermined genuine activism.
Why are African artifacts everywhere but Africa?
The countless African artifacts that continue to be held in Western institutions after being obtained illegally send a violent message that makes efforts toward reconciliation inconsequential.
Liberation is not propaganda
At Africa Energy Week, the language of resource sovereignty disguised a new form of climate denial that appropriates progressive rhetoric in service of fossil fuel companies.
Not exactly at arm’s length
Despite South Africa’s ban on arms exports to Israel and its condemnation of Israel’s actions in Palestine, local arms companies continue to send weapons to Israel’s allies and its major arms suppliers.
Mozambique and the politics of popular uprising
Join us on November 21st as we discuss the politics underlying the popular uprising in Mozambique with António Bai, Anne Pitcher, and José Jaime Macuane.
Ruto’s Kenya
Since June’s anti-finance bill protests, dozens of people remain unaccounted for—a stark reminder of the Kenyan state’s long history of abductions and assassinations.
Hopium kills but hope seeds
Reflections on Trump’s 2024 US presidential victory.
No justice, no peace in Mozambique
A decade ago, the kind of protest movement gripping Mozambique over the last few weeks would have been difficult to fathom.
Sem justiça e sem paz em Moçambique
Há dez anos, seria difícil imaginar esse tipo de movimento que vem ocorrendo nas últimas semanas em Moçambique.
When you get under Antony Blinken’s skin
On the deplatforming of ‘African Stream.’
When you love something, you fight for it
A personal reflection on what it’s like to fight anti-homosexuality laws as one of the few openly LGBTIQ+ rights activists in Uganda.
More French than Algerian
This week, Kamel Daoud became the first Algerian to receive France’s most prestigious literary honor. Yet, in Algeria, no one seems to care.
Between Harlem and home
African postcolonial cinema serves as a mirror, revealing the limits of escape—whether through migration or personal defiance—and exposing the tensions between dreams and reality.