Global finance and charity killed African healthcare
What happened to the once universally accepted idea of healthcare for all?
6442 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.
The politics of sugar in Tanzania
Sugar has become the new gold in Tanzania as prices for the commodity soar and stocks vanish.
Transnational African feminisms
What roles have francophone African women played in movements for pan-African liberation, historically and now?
Place matters
If COVID-19 teaches us anything, it is that the virus has no boundaries, and the well-being of both rich and poor are co-dependent. What we do about that matters.
The class character of police violence
Police violence and the murder of black people in the United States have provoked outrage and protest around the world, including on the continent. But, why is there so little outrage over police violence in African countries?
We cannot reform ourselves out of the times we are in
To end racism, we will have to change the structures from which it draws its mandate, and get rid of liberal and right-wing politicians who give it oxygen while we are being asphyxiated.
Hip hop futures in Kenya
Rapper Khaligraph Jones (government name: Brian Ouko Robert) chronicles the challenges faced by young people in Nairobi, Kenya.
Dear David Chang
A plea for foodie celebrities like Chang, the host of a popular Netflix show, to take African cuisine seriously.
Beyond the Western gaze
The “Africa needs help” vs. “No! Africa can teach you lessons!” is tiring. Other than benefiting a few pundits, are we deriving any value from it?
Dog day afternoon
The basic lesson from Halima Ouardiri’s short film, “Clebs,” about over 750 stray dogs living in a Moroccan sanctuary: We behave just like dogs.
A time for farewell, and a return
Africans rarely re-evaluate ourselves, the basis of our knowledge and our traditions on our own terms, argues Sierra Leonean writer Ishmael Beah.
Ivan Vladislavic and Muhammad Ali
How do white South African writers confront the country’s as well as their own pasts?
What are courts for?
Why courts should not become a country’s sole moral arbiter, how the coronavirus impacted judicial processes in India and South Africa, and more.
An ode to Somali girlhood
A new film set in Djibouti City presents a searing class critique of Somali girlhood.
The lesser of two evils
In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a partial COVID-19 lockdown has increased domestic violence, but women are not turning to shelters.
The bedroom adventures of African women
Talking to other African women about sexual experiences, desires, and fantasies without feeling judged.
Whiteness in Southern Africa
Rethinking white societies in Southern Africa from the 1930s to the 1990s, particularly the region’s white workers and white poor and their relationship with white-ruled states.
Creating colonial Portugal in Africa
How colonial Portugal, to project the idea of a multi-continental and multiracial country, initiated a drive to encourage white settlement in Angola and Mozambique.
Uncovering ‘undesirable whites’ in the colonial archive
Can African scholars write different histories about settler societies—especially as Africans or Africanist scholars based in Africa or in the diaspora? The case of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) is instructive.
Working-class whiteness vs. the apartheid state
How did South Africa’s white working class—those close to the politicized black workforce—experience the reform of apartheid?