Postcolonial theory and the strong arm of identity
The major problem with the term “decolonization” is its status as empty signifier, argues South African psychologist Wahbie Long.
6443 Article(s) by:
Ladan Osman
Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden (2019) and The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (2015). She lives in Brooklyn.
Gods of Fiction
A critical look at some of the problematic assumptions that defined African literature during the decades of its inception.
Pride, prejudice and blackface
A Dutch woman of Ugandan descent reflects on growing up with Zwarte Piet.
An enduring European tradition
An interview with Berlin-based Sierra Leonean electronic musician Lamin Fofana on Europe’s longtime fascination with African culture.
The state of the Afropean union
A border crossing mix of Afrobeats and Zouk and an interview with Berlin-based Sierra Leonean electronic music producer, Lamin Fofana.
What the Jair Bolsonaro regime in Brazil means for Africa
Brazil is the world’s second-largest African nation, but just elected an outright rightwing racist as president. It can’t be good for the continent.
Black bodies will fall in Brazil
What does the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro mean for Brazilians of African descent?
The Museveni State
Caricatures aside, how do President Yoweri Museveni and the National Revolutionary Movement state reproduce power?
Mandela’s dreams
Media studies scholar Sharon Sliwinski asks whether dreaming can be recast as a vital form of resistance to political violence. A review of her book.
Homophobic liberals
In Malawi, artists, especially poets—usually associated with progressivism and intellectualism—are the vanguard of a new homophobia.
Sudan in Berlin
“Berlin isn’t Germany. Just like that website you write for—it’s really its own country.”
The rebirth of the Nigerian left?
What has the world’s Moët drinking capital and a world leader in global indices of private jet ownership to do with left politics?
The idea of a borderless world
The capacity to decide who can move, who can settle, where and under what conditions is increasingly becoming the core of political struggles.
What to do about South Africa’s flailing economy
Any deviation from economic orthodoxy in South Africa is made coterminous with the most extreme cases, like Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
The disastrous road of private prisons
Kenya’s prisons are in serious need of reform. Opening the door to private interests is not the solution.
How did objects come to be in museums and who is entitled to own them?
The curators of the Weltkulturen museum of ethnography in Frankfurt, Germany trace the origins of objects that ended up in their collections, and ask if they were: COLLECTED. BOUGHT. LOOTED?
The Sheck Wes story
Harlem rapper Sheck Wes’s star rises in the shadow of Dapper Dan and Cheikh Amadou Bamba.
The film about nowhere
Invisible City [Kakuma], a film about Kenya’s largest refugee camps, seems keen on making a point but is anchored on unsteady ground (with some shitty translation).
Fanon’s fugitive archive
‘Alienation and Freedom,’ a massive collection of Frantz Fanon’s works, reveals his intellectual and political motivations, but also proves him enigmatic and inscrutable as ever.
How many immigrants live in South Africa?
The UN and South Africa’s Statistics Service are exaggerating immigrant numbers and playing with people’s lives in South Africa.