Anthropology

What Keeping a Journal for 12 Years Taught Me

I never really had a journal as a child. I wasn’t reflective and didn’t feel the need to write anything down. I wanted to spend every waking moment playing video games. The closest thing to a journal I had was the Argos catalogue. I remember…

Traces of Social Protocol and the Self

This is a photo I took years ago. It’s probably one of my favourite photos. I went through a…

Listen to this Recording of a Somali Nomad From the 1931 Paris Expo

From the mid nineteenth century onwards, colonial powers began to hold these “World fairs”. The aim was simple: how do we introduce the metropolis to the colonies? How do we make it easier for our population (the…

The Centre Cannot Hold — Modernity in Somali Theatre

Your Future Jobs Needs Your Help

Historically, learning was done in the classroom. You would finish school at say 16, you’ve enough…

Syrian Civil War — Myths, Stories and the Arts

When the Syrian civil war began in 2011, nobody expected for it to last this…

The Akhi in All of his Case Endings — an Exploration of Arabic usage Amongst London Somali Akhis

Akhi/Ukhti

Noun: taken from Arabic, meaning brother/sister. In the UK, it describes someone who has just started practising Islam again.

Cuba — a Country Where the Cars Are Super Old

Our plane lands first thing in the morning. Can’t say I had the best flight tbh…

Somali Music isn’t Shit Now, it’s Just Different

It was difficult for Somali musicians to make a living before the two national radios were on the air. Radio Hargeisa and Radio Mogadishu. From the 40’s onwards you got more and more musicians making a name for themselves. People like Magool…

Somalia’s Forgotten Dialects

“Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be glad to read him.” — Saul Bello.

Dialects, no matter the language, are said to possess logic capabilities, clarity and “values”. And a society’s attribution of those values to a dialect…