Defeated (by) academia
After submitting my dissertation, and now having to wait for yet another approval – I’m more keen to ask myself, how much more seeking for approval am I able to take? The past four years, I’ve felt defeated by the system which I never thought I’d feel welcome enough to take my guard down. I’ve…
Bayanihan
This is a piece of gratitude to the people who held me, who saw me, who walked with me throughout the last four years. Words are not enough to express how grateful I am to be surrounded by a community who dreamed of a world otherwise – a world nurtured by hope, by an economy…
The Pile
Our lives are expressed through words, through vocabularies that were handed over to us. Yet in our silent moments, we sit with a lingering yearning for worlds and words otherwise. So, we imagine. We create new imaginaries, spaces, and rules where perhaps humanity is more than a color or a belief system. Yet, as we…
red floods
red floods is a story inspired by conversations on aspiring to be an academic in a colonial world, where the only currency is a good, fancy, well-kept presentation of the day-to-day mess and contradictions we live in, where reimagining futures are still somehow confined within the colonial dream. Come to the Tower and see, red…
Becoming River
I have spent four years (of trying) to understand how different communities relate with the river, and what types of relationships emerge from their day-to-day interactions with the rhythms of the river. Four years, and I still feel inadequate; I like that, it humbles me. It challenges me. Some stories elude me; some forms of…
Peeling Onions
It took me until today to realize that I am the woman who gets to peel the onions. The onions have always been there on our kitchen table – untouched and fresh throughout the years. It always bothered me, and I’ve tried too many times to throw it. Just as I thought I escaped from…
When Women Cook
In this collage of proses and short conversations, women cook in the background.While the world grumbles for hope yet dives into darkness, women cook as if their hands are not calloused.In the kitchen, when most women are told to stay, women cook the biggest flight of history -Her story. This is what can happen When…
The Jail
Over dinners, and over long walks, my friends and I talk about the purposelessness of (most of) our pursuits these days. Even in a space like the academia where we’re told that our work should always strive to be socially (and morally) relevant, the day-to-day can seem empty. The long haul feels even more pointless.…
Then, we started filming
This piece is an uncomfortable confrontation about being a brown researcher working with a group of white researchers in the context of Kenya. I wish there was a simpler way to write about this, but the whole process was a dance between my doubts and my assurances. This piece is an ongoing reflection on how…
SIYA, SILA
I was walking along the streets of Rio de Janeiro during the Christmas holidays. At that moment, it dawned on me that my gaze was hazed by a longing of a sense of home. As I was walking, I imagined a woman; and she started walking on the streets while everyone stared at her with…
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