Introduction In July 1858, English explorer John H. Speke became the first European to set eyes on the source of the River Nile, a large inland body of water located in East Africa that he called “Victoria Nyanza” in honour of the United Kingdom’s Queen.[1] Whilst Western authors glorified Speke’s “discovery” and treated European exploration … Continue reading Impacts of British colonial water management on Lake Victoria’s Luo, Sukuma, and Basoga shore-folk, c.1850-present
Category: East Africa
Book review: Terge Oestigaard, Rainbows, pythons and waterfalls: Heritage, poverty and sacrifice among the Busoga in Uganda (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2019)
Following a four-month period of drought in February 2017, Mary Itanda, the rainmaker of the Busoga kingdom (also spelled "Basoga"), invited archaeologist Dr. Terge Oestigaard to participate in a rainmaking ritual at the eastern side of Itanda Falls on the White Nile, located 30km north of Lake Victoria near Jinja. In Busoga epistemology, the Itanda … Continue reading Book review: Terge Oestigaard, Rainbows, pythons and waterfalls: Heritage, poverty and sacrifice among the Busoga in Uganda (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2019)
Book review: Luise White, The comforts of home: prostitution in colonial Nairobi (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990)
With the stigma around female sex-work remaining widespread today, it comes as no surprise that prostitution has been a largely unexplored and misunderstood area of African history. The Comforts of Home uses oral history to foreground the experiences, agency, and financial independence of female prostitutes in colonial Nairobi in the period 1899 to 1963. Whilst … Continue reading Book review: Luise White, The comforts of home: prostitution in colonial Nairobi (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990)
Carissa Chew 