Beyond the Western gaze
The “Africa needs help” vs. “No! Africa can teach you lessons!” is tiring. Other than benefiting a few pundits, are we deriving any value from it?
6452 Article(s) by:
Marjorie Ruganda
Marjorie Namara Rugunda is a writer, researcher, and PhD student at the University of British Columbia.
Dog day afternoon
The basic lesson from Halima Ouardiri’s short film, “Clebs,” about over 750 stray dogs living in a Moroccan sanctuary: We behave just like dogs.
A time for farewell, and a return
Africans rarely re-evaluate ourselves, the basis of our knowledge and our traditions on our own terms, argues Sierra Leonean writer Ishmael Beah.
Ivan Vladislavic and Muhammad Ali
How do white South African writers confront the country’s as well as their own pasts?
What are courts for?
Why courts should not become a country’s sole moral arbiter, how the coronavirus impacted judicial processes in India and South Africa, and more.
An ode to Somali girlhood
A new film set in Djibouti City presents a searing class critique of Somali girlhood.
The lesser of two evils
In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a partial COVID-19 lockdown has increased domestic violence, but women are not turning to shelters.
The bedroom adventures of African women
Talking to other African women about sexual experiences, desires, and fantasies without feeling judged.
Whiteness in Southern Africa
Rethinking white societies in Southern Africa from the 1930s to the 1990s, particularly the region’s white workers and white poor and their relationship with white-ruled states.
Creating colonial Portugal in Africa
How colonial Portugal, to project the idea of a multi-continental and multiracial country, initiated a drive to encourage white settlement in Angola and Mozambique.
Uncovering ‘undesirable whites’ in the colonial archive
Can African scholars write different histories about settler societies—especially as Africans or Africanist scholars based in Africa or in the diaspora? The case of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) is instructive.
Working-class whiteness vs. the apartheid state
How did South Africa’s white working class—those close to the politicized black workforce—experience the reform of apartheid?
White mineworkers at Zambian Independence
Why did white mineworkers on the Zambian Copperbelt not seriously resist decolonization?
The cover up
A Kenyan investigative journalist reflects on the capture of a genocidaire in Paris after 26 years on the run and its significance to the families of the victims left in his wake.
A brief history of anti-black violence in China
The recent news of evictions and mistreatment of African students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic is rooted in a history of violence and discrimination.
Confronting the weapon of photography
The imperial legacy of the camera and the narrative power of words and images.
Eric Garner in Palestine
Activists in the occupied territories reinvent the Freedom Rides of 1960s America and in the process link US and Palestinian struggles for liberation.
Predisposed to chaos
What do we gain by exposing the material shortcomings of African health systems?
The complex history of skin lighteners
The intersecting dynamics of class and gender, changing beauty ideals, and the expansion of consumer capitalism in Africa.
Financing Africa’s COVID-19 response
We need swift, bold, and decisive action on debt relief and monetary creation in Africa in order to face the coronavirus crisis and prevent many ordinary Africans from paying with their lives.