The secret offshore world of the Kenyatta family
The Pandora Papers connects Kenya's ruling family to secret accounts in offshore companies and tax havens. But, state looting started with Jomo Kenyatta.
Kenya
We don’t need no education
Colonial and post-colonial governments in Kenya have worked to separate education from access to culture and information. It is an outdated model.
As we lose our fear
The Mathare Social Justice Centre mounts a photography exhibition on police brutality and extrajudicial killings in Kenya’s capital.
Wolf in shepherd’s clothing
Kenya’s elites, including the church, use ponzi schemes for predatory accumulation and Kenyans will continue to see their dreams deferred if the law doesn't change.
Nighttime in Nairobi
Africa Is a Country Radio continues its season focused on African club culture. Our next stop is Nairobi with Kenyan journalist and radio programmer Bill Odidi. Listen on Worldwide FM.
The lessons of history
Three years on, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), initiated by Kenya's President, Uhuru Kenyatta, with former opposition leader, Raila Odinga, feels like an elite pact with no popular support.
Three psychologies of Mau Mau
How racialized intellectual outputs placed in just the right circumstances can do the most damage.
Managing the city like the military
Nairobi is already witnessing the sidelining of democratic institutions. Now a new city management agency is further excluding the public.
Excavating Kazi Mataani
In the second video from our Capitalism In My City project, Dennis Esikuri talks to everyday Nairobians about the current employment opportunities in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Kenya’s 42 (+) tribes
The vagueness around who is and isn’t a “tribe of Kenya” is a double-edged sword. The persistence of ethnic classification and counting can be pernicious.
Gikuyu in Catalonia
The loss of African languages, their link with identity, and their role in forging decolonial futures.
The hustlers of Nairobi
Why is Nairobi's government terrorizing hawkers and hustlers around the city? An anthropological perspective.
Geographies of war-making in East Africa
African states are involved in the War on Terror more than we think. They're surrounded by an eco-system of the war industry.
What is Capitalism Mtaani?
In the first video from a series for the Capitalism In My City project, Brian Mathenge decodes what everyday capitalism looks like from the margins of Nairobi.
The class curse
How is Kenya's "new middle class" contributing to a pervasive low-quality oppression that leaves Kenyans feeling hopeless?
The unforeseen threat
Many of Nairobi's apocalypse merchants and prophesy peddlers have disappeared in the past year. Reflections on how COVID-19 has re-shaped the city and residents' lives.
The imagined immorality of refuge
Behind the anxieties about tackling forced displacement and terror, is the recognizable lexicon of racialized difference. This all infuses the practice of humanitarianism.
The value of care
2020 has given us an archive of heart-breaking examples of the politically transformative power of care.
Wangari Maathai’s environmental Bible
A key part of Maathai's work was how she creatively engaged with religious traditions, including Christianity and the Bible. Admittedly, her stance was somewhat complex.
The death of cities
Cities will continue to exist and grow despite the coronavirus crisis because of the distinctly human need for social interaction, physical contact, and collaboration.