What is Capitalism Mtaani?
In the first video from a series for the Capitalism In My City project, Brian Mathenge decodes what everyday capitalism looks like from the margins of Nairobi.
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Paul Milchick
Paul Milchik is a pseudonym for the author of this piece. His name has been changed due to his status as an international student in the US during the second Trump administration, in a context where foreign students have been targeted for detention and deportation as a result of expressing pro-Palestinian views.
The politics of social welfare
Why are South African government policies benefiting black mothers still controversial?
In search of Ethiopia’s past and present
The film “Finding Sally” grapples with Ethiopia’s past, but may romanticize its present.
The class curse
How is Kenya’s “new middle class” contributing to a pervasive low-quality oppression that leaves Kenyans feeling hopeless?
What’s Left of the South African Left?
This week on AIAC Talk, we’re debating whether the moment is right for South Africa’s left to form a new party. Watch it live on YouTube.
South Africa’s Left needs a new party
Assuming today’s socioeconomic crisis benefits the Left is folly. That will only happen if we have the political vision to make class the fault line of social polarization, and for that we need to face the challenge of constructing a new party.
The king is dead
The death of the Zulu king highlights the unresolved issues that continue to shapes lives in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
The unforeseen threat
Many of Nairobi’s apocalypse merchants and prophesy peddlers have disappeared in the past year. Reflections on how COVID-19 has re-shaped the city and residents’ lives.
Essentialism and the making of African refugees
African “refugeeness” in the media, policy, and academia is an essentialist physical image conflating material deprivation and multiple victimhoods.
The transcendence of boundaries
What kinds of radical emancipatory futures are being imagined in Africa’s speculative fictions?
A compassionate take on an invisible struggle
A new film by South African director Nomawonga Khumalo represents the contradictions and nuances of black women’s interior lives.
Equatorial Guinea’s ‘American Dirt’
A novel and Netflix film about Spanish colonialism in Equatorial Guinea raises questions about appropriation and storytelling.
Food and the struggle for Africa’s sovereignty
How early post-independence clarity on the link between food self-sufficiency and national sovereignty offers lessons for contemporary efforts.
Representation that sells us shoes
Adidas and other private, for-profit companies that are embracing corporate queerness are never going to contribute to our liberation.
What is decolonization for?
Scholars Archie Mafeje and Cedric Robinson challenged Eurocentrism. Their ideas are becoming more widely known. They’re the focus of AIAC Talk this week.
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.
Angola’s backyard revolution
This month on AIAC Radio we talk with Marissa Moorman and Paulo Flores to see how a music culture born in the quintals of Luanda helped birth a nation. Listen on Worldwide FM.
The reluctant scientist
The late Tanzanian president, John Pombe Magufuli, was initially lauded for his no-nonsense approach to corruption. But the cracks began to appear within months of his presidency.
Border wars
The Joint Boundary Commission that Lesotho and South Africa have revived, gives hope that some sort of border deal might be possible between the two countries.
Promises and discontents
A new documentary focuses on using the soil’s carbon absorbent properties to solve the climate change problem.