Is your mobile phone company seeing like a state?
How phones change the terrain on which Kenyans can make claims for services, redistribution, and recognition.
Politics
Many Missing Bodies
The many extra-judicial executions that happen in the poor, and predominantly, eastern urban settlements of Kenya's capital, Nairobi.
Do informal workers’ lives matter?
What is the death of a pregnant informal fish seller in Dakar to the suffering of sweatshop workers in Bangladesh or refugees at the borders of Europe?
The myth of Trump’s white working-class support
The role of the left should not be to focus its efforts on bargaining with the often misrepresented and caricatured concerns of a small sector of the working classes.
Shutting Down Dadaab Endangers Refugees
Those, mostly Somalis, born in Dadaab, since its creation in 1991, could be sent to a country they have never known.
All you need to know about Ghana’s December 2016 elections
We asked a group of experts--journalists, academics and an architect--a bunch of questions about the elections. First: Does it matter whoever Ghanaians elect as president?
The Match for Occupation
Diego Maradona makes excuses for Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.
Africans Migrate in Africa All the Time
The majority of African migrants move between countries on the continent.
Peculiar alliances
One of the most counterintuitive sights in the referendum on Colombia’s historic peace agreement between the
Beyond the International Criminal Court
The possibilities and limitations of the ICC to contribute to our collective struggles and how we conceive of justice itself.
Botswana: African miracle or African mirage?
Botswana is usually held up as an exception on the African continent for good economic and political governance. Is this a fair assessment?
The point of no return in Ethiopia
Whatever we make of the Ethiopian government’s prevarication, the Irreechaa Massacre was a point of no return for the people.
Profits and bleeding hearts
We speak to an aid worker and trade unionist at the forefront of campaigns to halt the transnational corporate education reform movement.
The idea of a mass pullout of African states from the ICC
Why is South Africa withdrawing from the International Criminal Court? And why now? And what does it mean for African states' participation in the court.
On the brink of peace
Colombia needs to be able to envision another country beyond the reincarnation of our memories of war.
What Kenya means to Barack Obama
Throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, his personal links to Kenya have been weaponized by the U.S.'s Right’s as a slur. But there's more to his relationship with his father's country.
The paradoxes of soft dictatorship
The longevity of the Gabonese political system also lies in the many channels of redistribution that connect politicians (known colloquially as “les Grands”) to ordinary citizens.
Enter the bulldozer
The legacy of Julius Nyerere’s state and state-run economy in Tanzania is a government (and ruling party) that values decree over debate, and control over entrepreneurship. John Magufuli is a model student of this system in its ideal form.
What Would Julius Nyerere Do?
Recent and current leaders in Tanzania like to be compared to Mwalimu Nyerere. Take current president, John Magufuli. He has been working hard to claim Nyerere’s mantle.
My people them dey stay for poor surroundings
For Nigeria, the World Bank reported that as of 2015, 48% of the total population (estimated at more than 180 million) reside in urban centers.