Belonging is not a sport
The reality of any society, any nation, and of our world, is much messier than picking a soccer team.
Culture
A pivot towards Africa
The positive reactions of Africans to Morocco’s performance at the World Cup are not outliers. Sport has often challenged outsiders' view of Africa's regions as disparate and disconnected.
The (African) Arab Cup
Morocco’s World Cup heroics are forging a new, dissident Third-World solidarity, reflecting the multifaceted nature of Moroccan identity itself: simultaneously Arab, African, and Amazigh.
Qatar’s vuvuzela
The 2022 Men’s World Football Cup is in its knockout stages, so the Africa Is a Country podcast catches up with some of the most exciting events so far in the tournament.
Father of the nation
The funeral of popular Angolan musician Nagrelha underscored his capacity to mobilize people and it reminds us that popular culture offers a kind of Rorschach test for the body politic.
Sembene’s Africa is everyone’s Africa
If someone had to hold the title of father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembéne would be the most compelling candidate.
The haunting draw of the West
To be African means at some point to desire to leave. African cinema can provide solace for our tortured relationship to the West and our own continent.
Watching Naija
Nollywood makes more films than Hollywood and Bollywood. What it lacks is strong marketing and promotion.
The imperial forest
Gregg Mitman’s 'Empire of Rubber' is less a historical reading of Liberia than a history of America and racial capitalism through the lens of a US corporate giant.
There is a World Cup
The 22nd FIFA Men’s World Cup, held in Qatar, is getting political. This week on the AIAC podcast, we discuss the sport and the politics with Tony Karon and Sean Jacobs.
Between East Africa and the Gulf
Political encounters between the Arab Gulf and Africa span centuries. Mahmud Traouri's novel 'Maymuna' demonstrates the significant role of a woman’s journey from East Africa to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The remarkable revival of Ugandan football
Uganda has never qualified for the World Cup, but at a continental level it is making a comeback. So is its club football.
The arc of the boomerang
More than class solidarity alone, more than a technocratic climate justice, a reckoning with empire is necessary for our collective survival.
Āfrīqāyī
It’s not common knowledge that there is Iran in Africa and there is Africa in Iran. But there are commonplace signs of this connection.
Through the lens of queer Indian South Africans
Queer Indians are largely invisible in South Africa's LGBT discourse. But representation is not enough, we need political transformation and multi-racial class solidarity.
Let it burn
Whether or not Twitter survives should be irrelevant to those committed to building a democratic public sphere.
The journey of a thousand steps
How might refugee as well as forced migration studies benefit from the movement to decolonize all aspects of African Studies?
A kingdom’s ransom
Although films like 'The Woman King' offer us a small glimpse into the past, they cannot give us the full story.
Royal succession in the age of social media
New Zulu king Misuzulu's strategy for ensuring the relevance of his monarchy copies from the Windsors in Britain: use the media.
Defying defeat
Political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s collection of writings are a powerful and evocative reminder that democracy in Egypt remains a bleak prospect.