The discovery of religion
We need to stop looking to Euro-America and its models and traditions, especially religion, as the source of all answers to the problems of the African continent and its people.
Continental
At the border, on the margins
African migrant women are exposed to intersectional systems of violence but are not simply victims.
Reading List: Edna Bonhomme
The author writes about books whose true power comes from excavating the perennial endemic diseases that never leave our sight.
The proper course of justice
Existing models of racial healing center whiteness and demand the emotional labor of Black folk, fetishizing reconciliation but forsaking justice.
In sun and shadow
On the last episode of our sports and music series on Africa Is a Country Radio, we visit with Sean Jacobs and Tony Karon of the Eleven Named People podcast to preview the 2022 men's World Cup football tournament.
South Africa’s postcolonial winter is coming
After 29 years of neoliberal failure in South Africa, foreigners are a convenient scapegoat for a national elite that failed to redistribute wealth. This is a pattern common to post-colonial Africa.
Philosophy for the people
For philosophy to be relevant in Africa, it must democratize and address contemporary social problems.
African joy, joy in Africa
We are usually more attuned to Africa’s pains than to Africa’s pleasures. What would studying African pleasures, beyond censorious judgment, look like?
Reading List: Duncan McEachern Yoon
The author’s new book wants to clear away some of the misunderstandings that dog Africa and China relations. Here, he catalogs the books that guided him.
The story of depression and how we treat it
A new book weaves science, history, philosophy and personal narrative in a refreshing and more globally inclusive look at depression.
Africa holds up a mirror to India
Shobana Shankar's new book, 'Africa, India and the Spectre of Race' (Hurst/Oxford, 2021) explores this complicated history.
Fight club
On this month's Africa Is a Country Radio, we soundtrack traditional martial arts and combat sports across the African continent.
The new imperialism’s strange bedfellows
Africa's political liberation and economic emancipation can't be one-country affairs, but pan-African combined with international solidarity.
We are all potential advocates
Director Shameela Seedat’s film about trainee lawyers provides a sort of celebration of youth on this continent and a vision of the next generation of Africans.
Cosmopolitan Africans, before colonialism
Africa's engagement with the world before European colonialism holds unexpected episodes of un-colonial power relations.
On the track and in the field
This month on Africa Is a Country Radio, we continue our theme of sports and music, and look at the history of Olympic success in athletics of various African countries.
An uncompromising criticism of the CFA franc
The CFA franc, pegged to a strong Euro, penalizes African economies as well as regional trade and facilitates the development of Western multinationals.
Did dependency theorists really ignore culture?
Must indigenous knowledge be science to be valid? Philosopher Paulin J. Hountondji shows that we must ask why Africa is scientifically and technologically dependent in the first place.
A big African literature prize in an African language
The Kiswahili Prize works to undermine the marginalization of African languages in literary culture. An interview with one of its founders.
Like a bad rain year
The consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for African food security and the need for greater food sovereignty.