Category: reclaim

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

19th September 2024
Posted by Wang​ũi
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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 renominated cabinet secretaries, and…

my afrikanness is embodied and alive

8th July 2020
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When did you realise you were Afrikan? What does it mean to you? If you’re like me and grew up in an Afrikan country, you may not have realised your Afrikanness early on – you may not have had a reason to. Growing up in my small town outside of Nairobi, Afrika did not have as much salience as my neighbourhood and town. In honesty, even Nairobi was an excessively…

the memory of seeds and indigenous resurgence in tharaka, kenya

9th December 2019
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“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

4th December 2019
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“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…

on development (reclaiming naming worlds)

22nd October 2019
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Development is a word and a world, A word from a certain kind of world Building. In an ecosystem of other words (progress, growth, sustainable development, adjustment, reforms, good governance, democracy) That makes a certain kind of world, Built for certain kinds of people Possible. What world? A world of scarcity, Of not enough Lower – on a ladder Behind – in a queue, Slow – in movement, Least –…

on searching to find the africa in african studies

26th August 2019
Posted by Wang​ũi
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When we wrote our open letter to the department of African Studies, hoping to document our collective grievances and open a conversation about how to change and improve the course for future students, we titled it “Searching for the ‘Africa’ in African Studies”. Getting through that course and being able to truly say that one had learnt somethings in African Studies, one had to search. Search beyond the shock of…