Ufahamu Africa

Ufahamu Africa is excited to launch its fourth season with a roundtable discussion about mobile money in Africa, its challenges, opportunities, and potential for social and political transformation. Co-host Rachel Beatty Riedl moderates the conversation with three Mandela Washington Fellows who participated in the Young African Leaders Initiative at Northwestern University earlier this year: Patton Kalunga of Zambia, Amadou Abdoulaye Sylla of Senegal, and Ngah Tse Ngah Benoit of Cameroon. Rachel and co-host Kim Dionne open the episode catching up on news in southern Africa, including protests in Malawi, xenophobic attacks in South Africa, and the death of former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. They also talk about new research that listeners should check out and they share congratulatory messages for some of Ufahamu Africa's earlier guests.  … More Ep74. A conversation with Mandela Fellows from Zambia, Senegal, and Cameroon on mobile money’s challenges and opportunities

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read her review of Erin Accampo Hern’s “Developing States, Shaping Citizenship.” The review was published as the twelfth and final installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: A review of Erin Hern’s book on public service provision and political participation

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read University of Cincinnati professor Alex Thurston’s review of John Campbell and Matthew Page’s “Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know,” Brandon Kendhammer and Carmen McCain’s “Boko Haram,” and Carl LeVan’s “Contemporary Nigerian Politics.” The review was published as the eleventh installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: Hear a review of three new books on power and politics in Nigeria

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read a Q&A between TMC editor Laura Seay and Elizabeth Foster, author of African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church. The Q&A was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: An author Q&A with Elizabeth Foster on her new book, African Catholic

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read her review of Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990, a book by Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle. The review was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: A review of Bleck and van de Walle’s book on electoral politics in Africa

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read Laura Seay’s review of First Raise a Flag, a book about why South Sudan won the war but lost the peace by author and journalist Peter Martell. The review was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: A review of Peter Martell’s new book on South Sudan

Have a listen to this week’s review of Nanjala Nyabola’s (@Nanjala1) Digital Democracy Analogue Politics, published by Zed Books (@ZedBooks). The review was published on Friday as part of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular (#APSRS19), and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage (@monkeycageblog), a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: A review of Nanjala Nyabola’s book on Kenyan politics in the digital age

Anna Mwaba (@AnnaKapambwe), the McPherson/Eveillard Postdoctoral Fellow in Government at Smith College and the featured guest in Ufahamu Africa episode 25, wrote this review of Foreign Intervention in Africa After the Cold War, a 2018 book written by Elizabeth Schmidt and published by Ohio University Press (@OhioUnivPress). In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read Mwaba's review. … More Bonus: Anna Mwaba’s review of Elizabeth Schmidt’s book on foreign intervention in Africa

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read her review of Amílcar Cabral: A Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Revolutionary, a biography by Peter Karibe Mendy, published by Ohio University Press. The review was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular (#APSRS19), and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage (@monkeycageblog), a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: Kim Dionne’s TMC review of Peter Mendy’s book, Amílcar Cabral

As they celebrate the end of the academic year in North America -- and their first as co-hosts -- have a listen to Kim Yi Dionne and Rachel Beatty Riedl talk about what ideas they have in store for next season. … More Episode 73: (North American) Summer is here!

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read her review of Always Another Country, a memoir by South African writer Sisonke Msimang. The review was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. … More Bonus: Kim Dionne’s TMC review of Sisonke Msimang’s book, Always Another Country

In this week's episode, we start with news about LGBTQ rights in Botswana, Russian interference in African countries' domestic politics, and east African governments announcing increased spending on infrastructure. We also mention the upcoming book launch for Jeffrey Paller and Noah Nathan's respective books at CDD-Ghana on June 19th. This week’s conversation is with Susanna Wing, associate professor of political science at Haverford College. She is author of the award-winning book, Constructing Democracy in Transitioning Societies of Africa: Constitutionalism and Deliberation in Mali, that was later published in paperback in 2010 as Constructing Democracy in Africa: Mali in Transition. Earlier this week Susanna wrote a helpful explainer piece about the recent violence and instability in Mali, which we talk about in this week's episode. Our conversation begins at 11:11. … More Ep72. A conversation with Susanna Wing on intergroup violence and instability in Mali

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read Laura Seay's review of Love Does Not Win Elections, a memoir by Ayisha Osori. The review was published in this past Friday's installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post.  … More Bonus: Laura Seay’s TMC review of Ayisha Osori’s book, Love Does Not Win Elections

We begin this week’s episode announcing an exciting collaboration with The Monkey Cage to feature bonus content each Monday morning -- a weekly reading of a book review from TMC’s African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular. The news we cover this week includes recent events in Sudan, Kehinde Wiley’s artist residency in Dakar, a nuclear project irradiating tsetse flies, and more. Our featured conversation is with Erin Pettigrew, an assistant professor of History and Arab Crossroads Studies at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on 19th and 20th century West Africa and histories of Islam, race, and healing in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Their conversation touches on how people deal with change over time, including practices involving the spiritual realm, which draws on what Erin learned in working on her exciting book project, To Invoke the Invisible: Islam, Spiritual Mediation, and Social Change in the Sahara. They also talk about Erin’s next book project on the history of a leftist political movemen

In this week's episode, we talk about Malawi's elections, the passing of Binyavanga Wainaina, and ethnic violence and displacement in Ethiopia. Our featured conversation is with Ato Kwamena Onoma, a political scientist currently serving as a senior program officer at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. He is also the author of two books, Anti-Refugee Violence and African Politics and The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa, both published by Cambridge University Press. His segment begins at 13:06. … More Ep70. A conversation with Ato Kwamena Onoma on property rights, refugees, and more

We start this week’s conversation with an update on the South African elections, but turn our focus to Malawi, which is scheduled to hold elections on Tuesday. We also talk about Facebook and fake news in African elections. Our featured conversation is with with Dr. Boniface Dulani (@bonidulani), a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Malawi, the fieldwork operations manager for Afrobarometer and senior partner of the Institute of Public Opinion and Research in Malawi. He shares his expertise on Malawian politics, especially with respect to the coming elections. Our conversation with him begins at 14:47. … More Ep69. A conversation with Boniface Dulani on Malawi’s elections, chieftaincy, and more

We start out episode this week talking about politics in Mali, South Africa’s recent election and give you an update on the political situation in Uganda. We talk about the arrest earlier this week in Kenya of Boniface Mwangi, who we spoke with on our podcast during episode 35. This week’s conversation is with Dr. … More Ep.68 A conversation with Maggie Dwyer about army mutinies in Africa, and more.

Our show this week begins with the elections in Benin, peacekeeping in Liberia, elections in South Africa and Malawi, and the Caster Semenya gender and racing saga. We also share an update on Ugandan musician-turned-politician Bobi Wine.This week’s in-depth conversation is really special: it features a mashup of four podcasts: Ufahamu Africa, On Africa, Into Africa, and African Tech Roundup. The hosts of all four shows come together to talk about a few things, including why we launched our respective shows. In addition to Ufahamu Africa's hosts Kim Yi Dionne and Rachel Beatty Riedl, you'll hear Travis Adkins (@TravisLAdkins), adjunct professor at Georgetown University in African Studies and Security Studies and the host of On Africa; Judd Devermont (@JDevermont), the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and host of Into Africa, and Andile Masuku (@MasukuAndile), a Zimbabwean broadcaster and entrepreneur based in Johannesburg, South Africa and host of African Tec

We begin this week's episode talking about Benin politics, a Malawian musician, the deployment of a malaria vaccine, a Russian company's involvement in Sudan's response to protesters, and the 25th anniversary of South Africa's elections ending the Apartheid regime.This week we feature a conversation with Abdourahmane Seck, an anthropologist and historian at the Faculty of Civilizations, Religions, Arts and Communication at the Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Dr. Seck is the author of several works on Islam and south-south migration. He is currently a visiting scholar in the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa, part of the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. His conversation begins at 15:13. … More Ep66. A conversation with Abdourahmane seck on Islam, modernity, and more

We start our episode this week talking about recent pieces on Sudan published in The Monkey Cage, the row between Uganda and Rwanda, African migrants stuck in Mexico, and the latest on events in Mali. This week's conversation is with Jeffrey Paller (@JWPaller), an assistant professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He was formerly a fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a Research Associate at the Center for Democratic Development in Ghana. Our listeners might be familiar with Jeffrey's weekly news bulletin, This Week in Africa. We spoke with him about his new book, published this week, Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa. Our conversation with Jeffrey begins at 10:34. … More Ep65. A conversation with Jeffrey Paller on urban politics, democracy in Ghana, and more