Obviously, this is not working
A jihadist insurrection has claimed 40% of Burkina Faso’s national territory. The response by military-political elites has been to add to the instability and crisis by fomenting coups.
6134 Articles by:
Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
Participation without competition
Yoruba political ontology, non-competitive democracy, and the sacrality of power in Nigeria.
En route to the unknown
African women exercise their right to migrate, but also face dilemmas on their way to the unknown. We need policies that protect them.
Reading List: Melinda Ferguson
The award-winning South African author Melinda Ferguson takes us through a selection of books exploring freedom, death, truth, as well as psychedelics, which can be a route to pondering such big questions.
Straight in the eye
Sahrawis are robbed of their agency by a zero sum game for influence between two regional rivals Morocco and Algeria.
Postcolonial cons, scandals, and fraud
Business fraud and illicit financial flows are not a new problem for Africa—the “Drevici Affair” in Nkrumah’s Ghana is instructive.
The discovery of religion
We need to stop looking to Euro-America and its models and traditions, especially religion, as the source of all answers to the problems of the African continent and its people.
At the border, on the margins
African migrant women are exposed to intersectional systems of violence but are not simply victims.
Dispossessing to deliver
In South Africa, land occupiers are evicted from their homes in the name of housing delivery. On the Africa Is a Country Podcast this week, we attempt to understand why.
Reading List: Edna Bonhomme
The author writes about books whose true power comes from excavating the perennial endemic diseases that never leave our sight.
The proper course of justice
Existing models of racial healing center whiteness and demand the emotional labor of Black folk, fetishizing reconciliation but forsaking justice.
The slow cancellation of the future
Anxious and isolated, living in poverty or financial precarity, we sink into ourselves and adopt self-destructive coping mechanisms.
In sun and shadow
On the last episode of our sports and music series on Africa Is a Country Radio, we visit with Sean Jacobs and Tony Karon of the Eleven Named People podcast to preview the 2022 men’s World Cup football tournament.
South Africa’s postcolonial winter is coming
After 29 years of neoliberal failure in South Africa, foreigners are a convenient scapegoat for a national elite that failed to redistribute wealth. This is a pattern common to post-colonial Africa.
Philosophy for the people
For philosophy to be relevant in Africa, it must democratize and address contemporary social problems.
The wounded hippo
In a US confronting its own anti-black racism, sentimental imaginings of Africa do little but uphold the white savior industrial complex.