The film “Africa Mia” (2019), directed by Richard Minier and Edouard Salier, explores the musical connections between Cuba and Mali.
Latest
The future of South Africa’s labor movement
South Africa’s labor movement is in crisis. How can it rebuild? We try to answer that question with Karl Cloete this week on AIAC Talk.
The water oriented away from normativity
What if our starting place is to claim that Africa has always been queer?, writes Johannesburg-based scholar Hugo kaCanham.
Wyuyata’s story
While Sierra Leone has come very far in its fight against sexual violence the question of safeguarding victims especially children needs urgent attention.
We’re actually being exploited once again
Mozambique should not move forward with extractivist mega-projects. They always contribute to serious violations of human rights, cause irreversible damage to the environment, and deepen the climate crisis.
To give the horror a name
The dissonance between what is communicated through local and international propaganda machines and what is actually taking place across the streets of Sudan.
AIAC RADIO
Africa Is a Country Radio is back with a new season. Each show will be inspired by the work of a different African author. First up, we explore the Ethiopian Tizita with Mukoma Wa Ngugi.
Culture
The politics of elegance
German historian Daniel Tödt wrote a history of the Congolese évolués. In this interview, he talks about the historiographical interventions of his book and the role of Patrice Lumumba in the history of évolués.
Turning the camera back home
The women filmmakers in the Ethiopian diaspora who have taken the risk of dedicating their lives to documenting their homeland.
From Kampala to Soviet Kyiv—and back
The Ugandan architect, Stephen Mukiibi, reflects on his studies in Soviet Ukraine and the lessons he learned on equality, environment, race, and friendship.
Tweeting apartheid sport
What if the social media conditions of 2021 existed in 1981? A group of New Zealand writers tweeted the damned 1981 Springbok rugby tour as if it was happening now.
Swallowed by the archive
53 years after it was first made in 1968, the Ghanaian filmmaker King Ampaw’s short film ‘Black Is Black’ celebrates its inconspicuous premiere.
Capitalism in My City
The Mathare Social Justice Centre has partnered with Africa Is a Country to produce a series of posts and videos to document everyday capitalism in Nairobi. The project is funded via the Shuttleworth Fellowship awarded to Sean Jacobs.
In the last video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, we meet the Organic Intellectuals Network.
In the third video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, Gacheke Gachihi visits a site of environmental injustice.
Politics
There is no fight without the women
During Guinea-Bissau’s war of liberation, women filled key positions on the frontline. That is often forgotten in the mythology of the struggle for independence.
Uganda’s most controversial and disruptive politician
A new book revisits the career of Uganda’s first elected prime minister, Benedicto Kiwanuka, his followers, and political ideas.
Corruption is a class project
Different factions of South Africa’s ruling elite are implicated in looting and profiting from the state. South Africans should take an attitude of a plague on both their houses.
What does China want in Africa?
On this week’s AIAC Talk: China’s engagement with Africa is much debated. What exactly does it want on the continent?
Bring Patrice Lumumba home
The return of Patrice Lumumba’s remains must not be an occasion for Belgium to congratulate itself, but for a full accounting of the colonial violence that led to the assassination and coverup.
Technology
Nigeria’s Twitter ban and the resistance politics of VPNs
Anyone who cares about civil society, free speech, and human rights should find the state’s digital silencing of its citizens deeply troubling.
WhatsApp and anti-capitalism: should you stay or should you go?
Facebook and its “family” of services are a one-way street towards greater integration, data exploitation, and erosions of privacy by an increasingly monopolistic company.
More widespread than we think
Today's social movements rely on tech collectives to organize safely. But few know the history of other technologies used by earlier liberation movements.
What is whiteness to a cyborg?
Tracing the digital contours of the settler colony helps us understand how old inequalities will shape a future with artificial intelligence.