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.
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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.
The Building Bridges Initiative, a reconciliation process to bring political elites together after the contentious general election in 2017, dominated Kenya’s political discourse. In 2019, the initiative was characterised by mass meetings across the country to collect views from members of the public and key stakeholders on the content of the proposed final document. At the same time, the ‘Punguza Mizigo’ (‘Reduce the Load’) initiative led by the Thirdway Alliance political movement was also on a nationwide tour to promote proposals to reduce the public wage bill through constitutional reforms. Both groups aimed at marshalling support for a referendum and constitutional change in 2020, but both processes struggled to gain traction in the context of a struggling local and international economy. In February, the government introduced the ‘Huduma Namba’ initiative to reform Kenya’s identity systems, producing a ‘single source of truth’ digital identity to replace various identity documents. The process was marred by threats and ambiguity, eventually leading to a court case challenging the government to enhance its protections against discrimination and change the legal landscape on data protection in the country. Meanwhile, environmental activists scored a major victory as the National Environmental Tribunal suspended construction of the Lamu Coal Plant, finding that the procurement process for the project had been irregularly conducted and did not meet the thresholds required by law.