Between Harlem and home
African postcolonial cinema serves as a mirror, revealing the limits of escape—whether through migration or personal defiance—and exposing the tensions between dreams and reality.
Global Migration
The freedom to move
Hiking as Kenyans in Kenya is pathbreaking, both literally and metaphorically.
From Naija to Abidjan
One country is Anglophone, and the other is Francophone. Still, there are between 1 to 4 million people of Nigerian descent living in Côte d'Ivoire today.
De Naïja à Abidjan
Un pays est anglophone et l’autre est francophone. Quoi qu'il en soit, entre 1 et 4 millions de personnes d'origine nigériane vivent aujourd'hui en Côte d'Ivoire.
Not only kafala
Domestic workers in the Gulf typically face a double bind: as a foreign worker, you are governed by kafala laws, while as a female, you are governed by the male guardianship system.
Seeking fantasies across the sea
By centering the African migrant perspective, a new film challenges Western images that cast hundreds of thousands of individuals into the generic role of desperation.
Border politics
Right-wing populists in South Africa have started copying their American counterparts by calling for a border wall.
Climate as border
Although little evidence suggests a direct link between climate change and mass migration, Europe is using “climate migration” to militarize its borders.
Being young and African in elite America
A new film follows the lives of four African students at MIT, where youthful idealism gets tested by the realities of American racism and inequality.
At what cost?
Malawi’s decision to send more than than 200 people to work on Israel’s farms sets a precedent for other African leaders to act with the same apathy.
The myth of the apolitical commission
In response to the Johannesburg fire disaster, the South African government has announced a ‘politically free’ commission of inquiry. But there is no such thing.
A tragic kind of hope
Nigerian and South Sudanese filmmakers give voice to the search for identity, stability, and belonging through the lens of youth and migration.
A double standard
The pathologization of ‘migrants’ in Tunisia and France shows how race and poverty shape our understanding of belonging.
Sierra Leone decides
What’s at stake in Sierra Leone’s elections on June 24? We discuss on this episode of the Africa Is a Country podcast.
Where are North Africa’s Jews?
A fascinating new graphic novel sets out to describe the effects of Nazi and collaborationist policies on the inhabitants of French-controlled colonies and protectorates of World War Two North Africa.
The Africanness of North Africa
As xenophobic attacks and anti-black rhetoric ramp up in North Africa, it is useful to highlight (or remember) the fluid, intertwined histories of the Saharan region.
Proof that our society works
You know who Gary Lineker is, and perhaps the Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan. But do you know who Abiden Jafari is?
Cut out of society
African women en route to Europe often land up stuck in Morocco, taking on precarious work as hairdressers and beauticians.
The dust, towers and false promises of modern Ethiopia
Successive Ethiopian governments have continued a 'modernizing' project that not only offers people false dreams, but actively dislocates them from the things that gave them purpose in the past.
“Black African” may be oxymoronic
For many African immigrants in the United States, being seen as Black doesn’t necessarily equate to seeing oneself as Black.