Category: power & power relations

Could we reach for more? Reflections on revolutions in our time – the pro-good governance protests in Kenya 2024

In June a mass protest movement began in Kenya in response to the proposed Finance Bill 2024 that would raise taxes on a range of basic goods. The face of the protests reflected the largely young population and one of the movement’s slogans was “leaderless, partyless and tribeless”. As I joined street protests, civic education on Twitter Spaces, signed and sent submissions to oppose policies and cabinet secretaries, and offered…

embodied pathways to the pluriverse – podcast

a model representing the framework of fromtheroots, an image of a tree with roots visible. around the roots are the words core community cycles and calling. around the branches are the phrases prevent death, heal dis-ease, add life and embody sovereignty. In the centre around the trunk a figure 8 is shown with the phrases cycles of healing, and cycles of creation on either side

Post Growth Institute · Embodied Pathways to the Pluriverse: Transitions from Coloniality to Regeneration transitions are desperately needed, so what do we do? “Here is the final piece of my invocation: the ‘fromtheroots’ model proposes that being deeply grounded in the roots of core, calling, community and cycles while we engage healing and creating processes will support us to divest from coloniality and practise regeneration. Said differently, for us to…

considering nourishment on world food day [podcast]

“On March 13th 2020, the first COVID-19 case in Kenya was reported and that was just a prelude to a “new normal” where schools, markets and offices folded operations. However, despite the pandemic sending chills down everyone’s spine, another crisis was building up at an alarming rate – job losses and lack of safe, affordable and nutritious food. Formerly viewed as a “village thing”…rural thing, kitchen gardens have become a…

stories of life vs stories of death in fossil fuel rich country

Kaiso is a fishing town on the SE edge of Lake Mwitanzige. The lake is currently known as Lake Albert maintaining its British colonial name. The original name means killer of locusts in Runyoro, the main language of the Banyoro people who are the indigenous folks of this area. The south-eastern edge of the lake has been termed the “Albertine Graben” by oil prospectors, denoting a region of the lake with an…

the memory of seeds and indigenous resurgence in tharaka, kenya

“In the global North, it has become more common to declare that indigenous peoples hold the solutions to the climate crisis. Such rhetoric risks being only lip-service if solutions don’t recognise and resource indigenous-led work to repair damage to indigenous cultures, commit to indigenous resurgence and integrate the wisdom of indigenous values.  After decades of shame, suppression and devaluation, much indigenous knowledge held by groups like the Tharaka has been…

why we should study afrikan history

“Tracing African pasts through the interlinked lenses of agency, possibility and imagination allows us to counter narratives of Africa as a blank slate, to challenge the privileging of whiteness and Europeanness, and to debunk myths about Africans as people who are destructive or unchanging. It allows us to illuminate diverse possibilities of human living to build on, against the hegemony of a present moment that unsees and devalues us. For…