Homeless in the city
The periodic evictions of poor families in Nairobi follows in a long tradition in Kenya, dating to colonialism, to keep the city as a space for the elite.
Informal
O ponto de ruptura
Iniciam nosso projecto sobre o capitalismo em Nairobi, perguntando: Será que já não existe um salário decente?
Janga la mfumo mpya wa ubepari
Tunaanza uchambuzi wetu kuhusu ubepari jijini Nairobi tukiuliza: Je, kuna kitu kama mshahara mzuri siku hizi?
The breaking point
We start our project on capitalism in Nairobi by asking: Is there such a thing as a decent wage anymore?
The Gig Economy Blues
The precariousness of life for women gig workers—in services like cleaning, driving, gardening, beauty supply, and catering—in Kenya.
Bottom-up hustling in Nairobi’s slums
Prevailing thoughts on slums stress their transitory character, but the complexity of everyday life in slums, including how people manage survival, is lost in the way they are understood from the outside.
Kenya’s mobile money revolution
Mobile-phone-based, person-to-person payment and money transfer systems are innovative—but are they really good for poverty reduction and development?
“Converting Eviction”
A reflection—by one of the group’s artists—on a Swiss-South African art project exploring eviction and extraction.
The problem with microcredit in Africa
The microcredit industry is not a driver of development and poverty reduction, but quite the opposite: it is an "anti-developmental" intervention.
The manifestation of climate injustice
Following the new UN report on climate change and agricultural land use, David S. Williams highlights the effects climate changes will have on communities in informal urban areas.
‘We are now treated the same as men. We have exactly the same rights’
How women farm workers in North Africa, specifically Morocco, are achieving justice on the job.
Demystifying the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Technological change is not simply a neutral and inevitable process—it is shaped and driven by existing social relations.
Blind to the matatus
The future of Kenya's matatus (commuter buses) and their inherent place in the capital Nairobi's culture and society, is all but absent in the government's neoliberal vision for urban planning.
The African Lion
Labour challenges in Ethiopia's industrialization.
The margins of urban life in Angola
In Angola, the poor are not entitled to full citizenship rights. They also are the base of resistance to the regime.
Zombie statistics and poverty porn
Two sides of the same e-waste documentary.
The meaning of party politics in Ghana’s urban neighborhoods
Why do so many of the urban poor support John Mahama and Ghana's opposition National Democratic Congress?
Africans are largely on their own facing climate change
What the response to #CycloneIdai tells us about Zimbabweans’ relationship to the state and each other.
Ethiopia’s capitalist turn
In a break with previous administrations, Ethiopia's new Prime Minister has declared that he favors free market capitalism as his preferred economic model.
The politics of reforming traditional land in South Africa
Land reform in South Africa has to not only tackle racial inequalities of ownership, but also the power of chiefs and the Zulu royal family.