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When I say Africa
Why are stories about African suffering so persistent? Bob Geldof. Image via the Back2Black festival on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed. Near the start of the documentary film The Greatest Night in Pop...
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And do not hinder them
We hardly think of politically organizing children. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them a voice in print. Children of Soweto. Image via...
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La CAN et la politique des affects
La CAN de cette année en Côte d'Ivoire a montré que ce n'est pas seulement la politique du football qui compte, mais aussi la politique de l'ambiance. Adjamé, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Photo par Eva Blue...
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Labor pains
Today, the Nigeria labor Congress barely commands the respect of Nigerian workers. Photo by Muhammad-taha Ibrahim on Unsplash. Over the past weeks, Nigerians have trooped out to the streets, protesting...
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Filling in the gaps in the study of African sports
To celebrate 20 years of research on sports in Africa, the SportsAfrica network will publish a series of monthly articles on Africa Is a Country drawing on their members’ research. Best Of IRB Sevens...
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From Salt River to the sea
When the the Palestinian Men’s National Team played an exhibition match in Cape Town, South Africa, it might as well have been a home game. Image courtesy of Ron Krabill © 2024. As the fans streaming...
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Lessons from Lesotho
With a coalition government likely after South Africa's elections in May, many are looking at the West for examples of coalition politics. South Africans, however, should look next door. Malealea...
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Congo beyond the hashtags
While social media has amplified calls for social justice in long-ignored parts of the world, it should only be the beginning of our activism. Lake Kivu. Image credit Mugisha Don de Dieu via Flickr CC...
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House of stone
Roy Guthrie was a refrigerator salesman in South Africa before he moved to Zimbabwe and established its largest sculpture park. Chapungu Sculpture Park. Image credit Martin Addison via Flickr CC...
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The limits of international solidarity
The failure of South African universities to call out Israel’s genocide challenges the assumption that South Africans have a deep appreciation of injustice in Palestine given their similar experiences...
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Goodbye, Piassa
The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture. Piassa Town, Addis Ababa....
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The people’s coup
Incoming Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye is as much outgoing President Macky Sall’s creation as he is Ousmane Sonko’s. Dakar, 2019. Image credit Vincent Tremeau for the World Bank via Flickr...
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Speaking as one African to another
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary Robert Sobukwe is often understood as a black nationalist. So what should we make of his close friendship with a white liberal? Robert Sobukwe with his friend...
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Allez Les Grenadières
When Haiti’s national women’s team take to the field for ninety minutes, they allow the Haitian people to dream. Renane, aged 8, plays football in Port au Prince, Haiti, 2010. Image credit Russell...
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Border politics
Right-wing populists in South Africa have started copying their American counterparts by calling for a border wall. Barbed fencing lines the South Africa-Zimbabwe border. Image credit Simon Davis for...
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When a black viking meets a black slave trader
What do computer generated images tell us about the evolution of coloniality and racialization in the AI era?"King Leopold II Of Belgium Colonizes Congo." Midjourney (6.0). Throughout 2022 and 2023,...
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Post-Afcon blues
Who else sorely misses the 2023 African Cup of Nations? Still from YouTube, credit Boima Tucker for Africa Is a Country. Two months have passed since the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations finale. Since then,...
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Whose Biennale is it anyway?
The theme for this year’s Venice Biennale, the ‘olympics of the art world’ is ‘Foreigners Everywhere.’ But beyond representation, what are the barriers to participation? Venice. Image credit...
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Between M23 and electric vehicles
With regional and global powers keen to take advantage of the DRC’s mineral wealth, it is hard to see how things can get better for the country in the short and medium term. Processed cobalt oxide...
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What are academic boycotts for?
Far from democratic institutions, a study of Israeli universities reveals that they are, in fact, directly and actively complicit in Israeli apartheid and racial rule. Photo by Taylor Brandon on...
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