Milk in the Upington sun
Fear of the future, longing for the past: the new story in South African politics.
South Africa
Making meaning in Johannesburg
Documenting an urban housing crisis and how tens of thousands of informal workers and unemployed people struggle to reshape Johannesburg.
Amilcar Cabral and the South Africans
Amilcar Cabral’s influence stretched far beyond the Portuguese colonies, profoundly influencing the political struggle in South Africa, past and present.
The limits of the cop drama
A bleak new television drama, ‘Donkerbos,’ explores secrets in small town South Africa, but fails to offer alternatives to the tropes of good vs evil.
How to make sense of Khoisan revivalism
Khoisan Consciousness is sweeping across South Africa. Exploring multiple perspectives is vital to make sense of it.
A fundamental reimagining of who we are
The future of Stellenbosch University does not depend on whether white people there can transcend individual stereotypes and prejudice. It depends on whether they can articulate anti-racism as a genuine political position.
What needs to fall to what needs to rise
The video playlist from our one-day symposium marking the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre—funded by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—is now on YouTube.
Character assassin
Author RW Johnson's latest aberration is a mix of fiction and lazy research that misrepresents anti-apartheid struggle leaders.
Selling fencing as freedom
What happens when companies start to sell the idea of a frictionless consumption that helps people at the same time?
The Cape Colony
The campaign to separate South Africa's Western Cape from the rest of the country is not only a symptom of white privilege, but also of the myth that the province is better run.
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.
Don’t mobilize, organize
To rebuild, the South African left must realize that there are no shortcuts to power.
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.
What’s wrong with the South African Institute of Race Relations?
Surveys on race by South Africa’s Institute of Race Relations (IRR) are deeply flawed and cynically used. Its influence on mainstream politics is significant and dangerous.
KwaZulu-Natal Gothic
The crime drama 'Reyka' looks at violence in the troubled South African province.
A new Zion
The spread of Garveyism from the US to Africa was as much about political liberation as it was religious salvation.
Rise of the reactionaries
AfriForum is no longer on the political fringe in South Africa, rather it's key in perpetuating increasingly mainstream, right-wing populism.
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.
Dispossessing to deliver
In South Africa, land occupiers are evicted from their homes in the name of housing delivery. On the Africa Is a Country Podcast this week, we attempt to understand why.
The slow cancellation of the future
Anxious and isolated, living in poverty or financial precarity, we sink into ourselves and adopt self-destructive coping mechanisms.