African Studies
Utafiti: Journal of African Perspectives
Call for Papers: Utafiti is inviting you to submit your manuscript – any topic in the humanities - for consideration in the next issues.
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This journal promotes critical and worldly debates with Africa at the centre.
New Series: Africa Futures / Afrique Futurs
Published in association with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Africa Futures features cutting-edge research that critically reflects on some of the big questions relevant to imagining Africa’s future as a place.
Listen to our podcast on Africa and Climate Change
Robin Attfield talks about how Africa finds itself vulnerable to drought but also the flooding of its coastline, among other untoward environmental effects of climate change and civil war.
Kenya was dominated by news related to the general election. Tension over the polls had built up throughout 2016 and finally came to a boil around the disputed August poll, which saw Uhuru Kenyatta declared the winner in questionable circumstances, immediately triggering protests and violent police reprisals. In the three days after the result was announced, the police killed at least 37 people in opposition strongholds in Nairobi and western Kenya. Tensions also spiralled in places like Laikipia, where the election reignited tensions over land ownership between the local communities and the significant community of European origin. The opposition filed a petition challenging the result, as was widely expected – all Kenyan multi-party elections except in 1962 and 2002 having been subject to legal review. The result of this petition was unprecedented: in a 4–2 vote, the Supreme Court annulled the August result, declaring that the elections had not been conducted in the spirit envisioned by the Constitution, returning Kenyans to the polls in November. Intrigues around the vote edged out equally important stories such as the calamitous two-year drought that sent food prices skyrocketing throughout the country, as well as increasingly alarming incidents of mass corruption, including the plunder of the National Youth Service.