Reading List: Xavier Livermon
Livermon’s new book explores how South African kwaito artists, Lebo Mathosa and Mandoza, pushed against the boundaries of gender and performance in their music.
6427 Article(s) by:
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.
This artist doesn’t want to sing for the Kenyan government
Government money, artistic freedom, and integrity in Kenya in the time of COVID-19.
Teaching as grassroots feminist militantism
Teacher, journalist, and photographer, Ndeye Seck, talks about feminism and her teaching practice, the Senegalese education system and her passion for football.
The blankest spot on Trump’s world map
In his new book of his time in the Trump White House, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton shares Trump’s very few thoughts on Africa.
What’s “local” labor in Burkina Faso’s mining sector?
In Burkina Faso’s mines, the differences between local and foreign workers are significant, especially what they get paid.
‘Bogus companies’ in the DR Congo
Can safety policies in the transnational mining sector in DR Congo break with the past?
Low worker wages and high inequality
How an industrial mine in the Congo reveals the inequity of wage distribution.
The myth of sustainable jobs in extractives
The optimism for “decent” and “sustainable” jobs in extractive industries does not fit with the reality in many African countries.
Born from the soil
Traditional chiefs and the politics of labor recruitment in Zimbabwe’s platinum mining industry.
Towards a neoliberal labor regime?
The introduction to our series, “Capital and Labor,” that looks at the current state of the mining industry on the African continent.
Decolonizing the vaccine
Africans can lead the charge to decolonize the profit-driven biomedical system by challenging European and American claims to prioritized access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
A politics of nuisance
Political activist and award winning photojournalist Boniface Mwangi wants to remake Kenyan politics. A new film charts his journey.
The wife’s tale
First published in 2018, Aida Edemariam’s The Wife’s Tale is an extraordinary book that will help in opening up new narratives about women’s histories.
Betrayal and community
The politics of local resistance in urban South Africa: Evidence from three informal settlements.
A murder in Congo
What does the decade-old “Congo-case,” involving two Norwegian mercenaries, tell us about residue coloniality in Scandinavia?
Artists help us leap into the unknown
When the usual rules no longer hold, like in a pandemic, we might find inspiration in the collectivities and working principles of artists.
The book of his life
Father’s Day reflections for the time of COVID-19.
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.
Art and the politicization of African bodies
The painter Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi speaks to Drew Thompson about the evolution of her practice and how she locates herself in contemporary African art.
Access delayed is access denied
It will be survival for the fittest when the COVID-19 vaccine arrives. As it stands, relevant international regimes for its distribution are not in Africa’s favor.