Ufahamu Africa

Episode 32 features a conversation with Amy Halliday , director of the Hampshire Gallery at Hampshire College. Amy works at the intersection of curation, education, arts administration and management. She holds an M.A. in Art History from University College London and an M.A. in teaching from Smith College. We talk about contemporary African art and " 5 Takes on African Art ," an exhibit...

This is the second part of this week's episode, when I chat with Dr. Rose Mutiso ( @MutisoRose ) and Rachel Strohm ( @RachelStrohm ), co-founders of the Mawazo Institute , a start-up non-profit research institute in Nairobi, Kenya. You can find Part 1 here . Here is Part 2: As I mention in this week's episode, Mawazo is currently hiring a program manager —but the deadline is quickly appr...

This week's conversation was great, but ran long—so I've broken it up into two parts. I chat with Dr. Rose Mutiso ( @MutisoRose ) and Rachel Strohm ( @RachelStrohm ), co-founders of the Mawazo Institute , a start-up non-profit research institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Both Mawazo founders are researchers themselves. Dr. Mutiso’s research focus is on African energy sector development. She hol...

After an unplanned break, the podcast returns this week, highlighting a new film: Guangzhou Dream Factory . In a conversation with filmmaker Christiane Badgley ( @pipelinedreams ), we talk about African migrants in China and the missed opportunities in these entrepreneurs' home countries. Much of Badgley's earlier work is set in Africa. In recent years, she has focused her attention on t...

We have to postpone this week's episode due to illness. BUT -- we're sharing one of our earlier episodes as it relates to a new discovery. There was news this week that the American Museum of Natural History in New York is thought to be holding remains of victims of genocide in what was then known as South-West Africa and is today Namibia. From the report : Barnabas Veraa Katuuo of the A...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Professor Landry Signé ( @LandrySigne ), a Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for African Studies, founding Chairman of the award-wining Global Network for Africa’s Prosperity, and Professor of Political Science and Senior Adviser to the Chancellor and Provost on International Affairs at the University of Alaska Anchorage. We talk about devel...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr. Kathleen Klaus ( @KathleenKlaus ), Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. She earned her PhD at the University of Wisconsin and was recently a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. Her research examines elections, violence, and land rights and she is currently finishing a book manuscript that draws from extensive resea...

This week is a special episode of Ufahamu Africa. Instead of our standard format of catching you up on the week’s news and then featuring a conversation with a thinker, maker, or innovator, we’ve compiled our first-ever Summer Beats Soundtrack. Have a listen to some of the top songs featured in earlier episodes. Here is the track list: 0:32      🇸🇩 Sinkane (@Sinkane), U'Huh, featured in Episo...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr. Chipo Dendere ( @ drDendere ), a Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellow & Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. Her research is on the survival of liberation parties and democratization in Africa. We talk about her work on the politics of emigration out of Zimbabwe as well as protest movements, social media, and the rol...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Anna Mwaba ( @annakapambwe ), a PhD candidate at the University of Florida. We talk about her research on the African Union and election monitoring. We also talk about the unintended consequences of political science research on Africa by those of us trained in the West. Our chat begins at 3:19.  Our featured song this week is Love by the Kenyan band Sarabi (...

In this week’s episode, we feature remarks by Dr. Zachariah Mampilly ( @ Ras_Karya ), an Associate Professor of Political Science, International Studies, and Africana Studies at Vassar College. In 2012-2013, he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War and with Adam Branch, Af...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr. Kennedy Opalo ( @kopalo ), an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His research focuses on the political economy of development, legislative development, and electoral politics in emerging democracies. Ken blogs regularly at his blog, An Africanist Perspective , and currently is writing a weekly column f...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr. John Aerni-Flessner ( @LesothoJohn ), an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University. His research focuses on youth, nationalism and the 1960s in Lesotho, a small landlocked country in southern Africa. We talk this week about the Lesotho elections, which were held on June 3rd. Our conversation begins at 4:04. Our featured song this week is...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr. Souleymane Soumahoro ( @soumduce ), an economist currently consulting at the World Bank. Originally from Côte d'Ivoire, Dr. Soumahoro earned his bachelor of arts degree in political economy from Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, his masters in economics at the Université D’Auverge in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and his PhD in economics at t...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr. Adia Benton ( @Ethnography911 ), a professor in anthropology and in the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University. In 2015, the University of Minnesota Press published her book, HIV Exceptionalism: Disease through Development in Sierra Leone . We talk about her book and we also discuss the change in leadership at the World Health Organization,...

In our final week recording together (before Sarah Agatoni, Smith College Class of 2017 , graduates), we take a moment to reflect on the year we've spent together and what we have hoped to do with the Ufahamu Africa podcast. We talk about identity, community, and studying/understanding Africa from afar. Our song of the week is "Taabu" by Kenyan artist Phy, care of EnnovatorMusic and...

This week’s episode features a Q&A with Nicole Amarteifio ( @AllThingsAfrica ), creator of the hit web series " An African City ." We talk about the show as well as a new TV show she's created -- " The Republic ," a political thriller set in Ghana's capital Accra. We also talk about a recent public service announcement she created, #HowShortWasYourSkirt, which add...

This week's episode features two conversations about recently published books on African politics. First, I chat with Dr. Rachel Beatty Riedl ( @BeattyRiedl ), Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. Her award-winning book, Authoritarian Origins of Party Systems in Africa , was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. Our conversation begins at 3:30. My se...

In this week’s episode, we chat with Dr. Candis Watts Smith ( @ProfCandis ), assistant professor of public policy at UNC. Her first book, Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity , was published by NYU Press in 2014. We talk about her book and about racial and political attitudes among millennials in the U.S. Most controversially, she shares and defends her unpopular opinion on Yaa...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Georgetown University professor Lahra Smith . Her book, Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender and National Identity in Ethiopia , was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Dr. Smith has taught and conducted research in refugee camps in East and Southern Africa, and has ongoing research on civic education programs in Kenya. We talk to her this...

In remembrance of the genocide in Rwanda in April 1994, in this week’s episode, we speak with Rwandan filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza ( @KivuRuhorahoza ). His debut film Grey Matter , which came out in 2011, won the Jury Special Mention for Best Emerging Filmmaker at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. His second film, Things of the Aimless Wanderer , which was released in 2015, was selected to the Sundance...

In this week’s podcast, we speak with Constantine Manda ( @msisiri ), a doctoral student in political science at Yale University who hails from Tanzania. We talk about recent events in Tanzania, including the firing of Tanzania's information minister and the arrest of rapper Nay wa Mitego, and how these events signal growing authoritarianism in the country since the election of President John...

In this week's podcast, we speak with Dr. Kavemuii Murangi, a Namibian-born educator currently residing in the United States. He is a descendant of the victims of the Ovaherero genocide of 1904-1908 (his great-great grandfather died in 1904 during the genocide war) and co-founder of the U.S.-based OvaHerero, Mbanderu and Nama Genocides Institute . For background on the genocide, you may want...

We go long in this week's episode, when we feature excerpts from a fireside chat held during last month's African Women's Leadership Conference at Smith College. We are excited to share some of the insights from the conference speakers: Wambui Mwangi ( @wambui_mwangi ) is a Kenyan writer, scholar, and artist with a passion for post-colonial theory and Kenyan political history. Malik...

This week we chat with three scholars in the diaspora about recent episodes of civil unrest in Zimbabwe. Dr. Chipo Dendere ( @drDendere ) of Gettysburg College gives us an overview of the recent protests in Zimbabwe and shares insights from her research on remittances and politics. Melusi Nkomo ( @MelusiNkomoZim ), fellow at Harvard University's Center for African Studies, shares insights abo...