In this blog post, Lebohang Liepollo Pheko introduces a recently published, open access special issue in The BMJ on reparations and global health. In it, she argues that if the 19th century was the ...

I want to tell you about a book that made me deeply uncomfortable, not because it was difficult to read, but because it was easy. I kept expecting the analysis to feel dated, to hit a page where I ...

In 1950s apartheid South Africa, visibility was never neutral. To appear publicly as Black, urban, fashionable, and modern carried political meaning in a society built on racial segregation and ...

Kenya’s post-independence history is marked by numerous instances of high-ranking politicians and politically connected individuals exploiting state power to illegally acquire public land – what land ...

In a Uganda long accustomed to provocative social media flurry from Army Chief General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, two recent developments shocked even the most cynical observers. On the night of 27 June, ...

From politics to law, environment, to social life, Kenyans have had quite a fruitful half-year. What should we keep an eye on? What should we measure? What should we leverage? The Elephant talks to ...

There is a cross-cutting sense of dysfunction that defines the public life in ways that drain the public imagination and sap the national spirit. What does it take to dream of better outcomes and the ...

The tales told of the origins of colonial Nairobi, formerly Enkare Nyirobi, are awash with references to railways, guns and the Imperial British East Africa Company. Animating them are hunters and ...

In her August 2022 column for The Nation magazine, Nanjala Nyabola, arguably my generation’s most prolific non-fiction writer, delivered a stark declaration: Kenya is a kakistocracy. Kenya, she said, ...

That was 2022. A roadside accident in Kenya. A crowd of witnesses has gathered in front of a female reporter’s microphone, and as she adjusts her earphones to start the live broadcast, a young man in ...

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently… The people who are crazy enough to think they can change ...

In this series, we glean into our community of writers to help us understand the development of the New Native. Darius Okolla and Akal Mohan locate the emergent Native within the 2024 protests, while ...