I got caught out on this post when the Supreme Court annulled the August election results after I had drafted the post and all…. The annulment [and everything that followed it] resulted in an extra-long election period and collective holding of breath accompanied by lots of intrigues (threats, insults, name callings, arrests…. With all that happening I didn’t feel like I could post this…. Ironically, because I start by talking…
Category: disruption
african + environment? yes indeed
I am guest blogging at the Transition Network for 6 months and my first blogpost just went up. In the series I want to think about what the environment, environmentalism, nature are and mean to Africans and for Africa. I do this through interviews with some people I know who work within these spaces and I will be inquiring into what they think and how they make their visions of…
healing trauma: mutual recognition and responsibility
Dr Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela gave a talk yesterday at my campus drawing from her research and work on the truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) in South Africa following the trauma of Apartheid. In her talk titled Recognition and Mutual Transformation: Reflecting on the Reparative Humanism of Ubuntu and Inimba she was drawing upon two cultural concepts from South Africa, ubuntu and inimba to conceptualise how it might be possible for empathy…
life update
It’s been a while since I have done a life update post so here goes. I decided to take a sabbatical this year to focus on healing and skilling myself up in preparation for the work that I believe I am called to do. This to me is to heal and reconnect community relationships, and to heal and reconnect our relationship with the earth. Here’s some of what I’ve been…
a feminist kitchen? it’s all in the design
According to the Macmillan Dictionary, a kitchen is a room where you prepare and cook food, and wash dishes. The role and meaning of kitchens around the world is more varied and complex than this definition would have one believe, however. Ordering space through design is a key way in which diverse meanings are ascribed to nominally similar space. Design defines what a space is and isn’t, and who is…
a thief is made, they don’t become one by mistake
“A thief does not become one by mistake. A thief is made.” This is one of the conversations I have just had with a youth empowerment and alternatives to crime activist on my first day at a non-violent communication training. Within the past few hours I have met 2 people, including the activist, who are from Ongata Rongai, the town on the outskirts of Nairobi where I was born and…