More than a national pastime
Nigeria did not qualify for Qatar 2022. The troubles in the country's football administration reflect the crises in the nation’s political culture.
Culture
What is it about the Kenyan postcolonial state?
The lesson from political economist Rok Ajulu’s academic work and activism: it’s not enough to change the “tenants,” but fight to change both the “state” and all of its houses.
The beginning is always the body
The artist, Frida Orupabo, explores the social world around her via her large collages. Curator, Elvira Dyangani Ose, spoke to her about her work.
Sampa The Great’s new chapter
Zambian artist, Sampa the Great, returns to the stage in Australia with "An Afro Future." In an interview, she talks reconnecting with her roots and redefining the future.
It takes a team to raise an athlete
Race, class and the story of struggle and sacrifice in the making of South Africa’s next generation of track and field athletes.
Navigating queer utopia
A new book presents an empirical challenge to the myth of South Africa as the “pink capital” of Africa and contributes to building an archive of queer, African, and religious narratives.
When Egypt was Black
Pharaonism, a mode of national identification linking people living in Egypt today with ancient pharaohs. It emerged partly as an alternative to colonial British efforts to racialize Egyptians as people of color.
The body in flight
The 14th edition of the Dakar Biennale puts up the first significant survey of Senegalese artist El Hadji Sy’s work in the city.
Milking the dream
The 2022 Venice Biennale shows that despite the lack of investment from African nations or the occasional hijacking by mercenary curators, African artists are finding ways to be seen.
Where, and why, is North Africa?
The centrality of race, colonialism, political projects around transnational identities, and the social sciences, all had effects on how the Middle East as a region came to be.
Colonial Vice at the Venice Biennale
At the world’s most prestigious art exhibition, all is not well when it comes to relative newcomers from the African continent.
The political economy of “decolonization”
Decolonization in Kenya may be permitted in its universities if the Kenyan government receives a grant to promote it, or if foreign donor will sponsor it.
A crop that changed the world
The story about peanuts, and the people who grew it at the margins of an empire in 19th century West Africa, then the most abundant source of the world’s most important oilseed.
Imagining new stories, new freedoms, and new joys
Lindsey Green-Simms’ book "Queer African Cinemas" explores the intersections of postcolonial thought, queer theory, and screen media.
A little bit of African thinking
The profound influence, often underplayed, that great African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral had on Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire.
An African Queer in the academy
We do not have to die, become sick or leave the academy to live and be in this space.
Keeping a displaced group closely knit together
A photo essay on Masjid Tajul Huda, a mostly West African mosque in the Bronx, New York.
The land of the freed people
'We Slaves of Suriname' (1934) was the first study of Dutch colonial rule from the perspectives of the people who resisted it. It is has been published in English for the first time.
A hopeful song about Sierra Leone
A new film, "Sing Freetown" (director: Clive Patterson) and accompanying theater project from Sorious Samura and Charlie Haffner attempt, with varying success, to sing a different song of Freetown.
Beja music cannot be beaten by any regime
The Dorpa Band from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan, embodies Beja Culture. Their bandleader, writes what drives their music.