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.
Culture
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.
There are no dogmas for the practice of democracy
Africans have been decolonizing, critiquing, but also enriching liberal democracy from an African perspective since colonial times. Pro-democracy and decolonial intellectuals owe a debt to this body of work and can learn from it.
Reading List: Shimrit Lee
The author of 'Decolonize Museums' assembles a list of essential reading on the past, present and future of museums.
KwaZulu-Natal Gothic
The crime drama 'Reyka' looks at violence in the troubled South African province.
Bookends: Rémy Ngamije
Rwandan-Namibian writer and founder of Doek! arts organization shares his sober routine and dramatic daydreams.
A new Zion
The spread of Garveyism from the US to Africa was as much about political liberation as it was religious salvation.
How to write like Binyavanga Wainana
This week on the AIAC podcast, we discuss a new posthumous collection of writing from Binyavanga Wainana.
Participation without competition
Yoruba political ontology, non-competitive democracy, and the sacrality of power in Nigeria.
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.
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.