Category: indigenous knowledge & practices

healing trauma: mutual recognition and responsibility

16th November 2017
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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…

decolonising in practice- post on brainstorm

14th January 2016
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This experiment to me represents knowledge revival in two senses. Reviving my grandmother’s knowledge: she herself couldn’t tell me how she processed maize in this way, being bodily gone from this world; but at least I know that she did. In a second sense, this is knowledge rebirth – using beneficial indigenous knowledge from a different place (Mexico) where I am (Kenya). This is the kind of knowledge rebirth or…

where are those songs?

4th January 2016
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‘Where are those songs’ is a poem by Micere Githae Mugo (1972) that I like and find inspirational especially in light of a quest for memory and recovery of once remembered things. It starts off a bit despondent, the narrator is seeking songs and memories only to find them lost- unremembered. But it ends on an inspirational note, that one must begin singing and fashioning songs of life in the…

on resilience

20th July 2015
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In another reflection piece from Cape Town, I wrote about resilience in cities- the inspiration was a day when electricity was out in Langa, a black township where we lived for a few weeks. But now that load shedding– scheduled periods when electricity is out in different parts of the country- is a common thing in South Africa, this piece rings even more true. You never miss the water till…

bartering for sustainability

1st June 2015
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“But bartering has been around, even if only on a micro-level for a while too. In my travels on a fellowship studying forms of engagement with environmental issues in low-income urban areas, I encountered this sharing- what I call a ‘culture of exchange’- in various forms. It was in the swap fairs and eco-fairs in various transition movements in São Paulo for example. On a Saturday or Sunday every month…