Festival Recordings
Opening Ceremony: 3rd Kwame Nkrumah Festival
Prof Esi Sutherland-Addy is the Chair of the Panafest's International Board of Trustees. she is uniquely well placed to discuss the cultural, political and pedagogic possibilities and power of festivals. From the Caribbean Carnivals across the diaspora to demonstrate popular...
WatchWho and What Define ‘African Culture’?
"Culture is often defined by the powerful and the rich, rulers, and patriarchs, but African liberation theorists re-define it more inclusively as 'the whole way of life of the people'. As a leading African feminist thinker who has contributed significantly...
WatchPan African Perspectives on Pandemics
Winnie Byanyima was the youngest most forward looking of Uganda's MP's and was popularly elected three times in succession, before she became a public civil servant, first at the African Union, and later within the UN system. As a survivor...
WatchPan Africanism, Black, African and Feminist Radical Thought
This plenary panel sets the scene for the ensuing days of the Festival by addressing the latest theorizations of Black and African radical theoretical traditions, and how these are advanced by anti-imperialist and anti-racist feminism theory. This panel examines the...
WatchMasculinity and Misogyny in African Theory, Culture andPractice
"Under this topic, this session will consider the concept of the African Masculinity and its accompanying tculture of misogyny and violence towards women which are often justified in the name of ""African Culture and widely tolerated in heteronomative social relations...
WatchBirth Justice and Maternal Health in Africa and the Diaspora
Pregnant women of African descent in the U.S., Caribbean and Africa are caught between malign neglect and coercion; routinely denied access to affordable and culturally competent prenatal care, and simultaneously subjected to state coercion and unwanted medical interventions. As a...
Watch#BlackLivesMatter and #EndSARS
Black and African youth movements have become increasingly resistance to the violent suppression of freedom by the military and police forces on both sides of the Atlantic. Activists from #EndSARS and#Black Live Matter movements meet to discuss their respective movements,...
WatchGender, Decolonization and Intellectual Property
This session will highilght the importance of the law as a tool for decolonization and feminism by examining the possibilities and limitations of intellectual property laws. Currently corporate entities are able to utilize IP rights, and draw the benefits that...
WatchTrading African Cultural Products across Borders
The focus in this session will be on shedding the spotlight on the trade in African Cultural products and Creative Prowess such as arts, fashion, technology. The contributors will also share their experiences of engaging in commercial activities between African...
WatchMarket Queens: Transnational Traders
The Market Queens of Makola Market share their experiences as transnational traders who play important role in Ghana's key commercial institutions with a view to understanding the complex subtleties of their activities, and how they organize women's resistance to structural...
WatchProduction of Cultural Technologies
This session is devoted to the demonstration of technologies associated with music -the Zimbabwan Mbira and the Ghanaian Seprewa - and the local production of chocolate two sisters. These examples defy the global monopolization and definition of 'value' by Western...
WatchAfrican Languages, Cultural Identities and the Next Generation
"This session will seek to explore the multi-dimensional peculiarities of the many African Languages and their roles in communicating and preserving African belief systems, values and customs, also with respect to how instrumental they are in fashioning and projecting cultural...
WatchIndigenous Healings Arts and Herbal Medicine
As many as 80% of Africans rely on indigenous remedies because of thier relative afforabilty. Vaccine apartheid is only the latest illustration of global inequality in access to Western medicine. At the same time indigenous plants and herbs are being...
WatchFeminist Africa Facing the Future and Townhall
Feminist Africa is back! The continent's first open access digital journal of gender and women's studies, was initiated at the African Gender Institute following a continent-wide consultation held in year 2000. Hosted at the University of Cape Town until 2017,...
WatchTowards a Cultural Economy for African Liberation
"The internationally renowned historian and higher education expert Professor Paul Zeleza will address the challenges of liberating African culture from colonial heritage and the necessity of challenging the current commodification, appropriation and extraction of African culture through an inequitable global...
WatchAlternative Business Models for African Cultural Production: Showcasing Cooperative Enterprises
The session will showcase examples of successful cooperatives from different regions of the congtinent. Reflective presentations by members of leading cooperatives will discuss cooperative strategies and practices, their achievements and accomplishments, and the major challenges they have faced. Presenters will...
WatchGender and Women’s Studies as Feminist Strategy
"In the early 1990s only 4% of Africa's professoriate were women, and while this number has steadily increased, especially in administrative appointments, there are still few women in top research professorships. Feminist academics have established gender and women's studies programs,...
WatchPan African Trade Policy
"With a goal towards examining the challenges that the current global economy presents to enabling factors that will allow for the creation of an exclusive continental commercial atmosphere with unrestricted movements for business entities and ventures of African origin, this...
WatchCOVID-19, Feminism and the Pandemic
Following up on the Peoples Vaccine campaigner's and Head of UN AIDS, Winnie Byanyima's address on the Pandemic in Pan African persepctive, this panel is convened by Akosua Darkwah, Editor of the forthcoming Issue of Feminsit AFrica on the subject...
WatchWhat Does it Mean to Africanize the University?
This session will provide an exposition into the process and significance of facilitating a revolutionised reconstruction of tertiary education with a view towards situating the African culture, realities, narratives and context in African universities, the pinnacle of formal knowledge sharing...
WatchThe Politics of Beauty and the African Body
"This session will center around the evolution of beauty practices and body perceptiveness in the African context to critically consider the various beauty standards prevailing in heteronormative consumer societies that have emerged since the end of direct colonial rule. The...
WatchLeft Feminist Biographies
Following the screening of biograhical documentaries on Lorraine Hansberry and Ama Ata Aidoo, this panel brings together several of the worlds most accomplished feminist biographiers to discuss the lessons that we can draw from the lives and experiences of some...
WatchAfrican Cinematic Resistance to Western Hegemony
Since inception, Africa’s independent film industry has overturned colonial and racial capitalist distortion of Africa, Africans and African relations of gender and sexuality.
WatchInterview with Bernadine Evaristo
Nigerian-British author Bernardine Evaristo, the first African to win the the Booker prize for fiction, joins Abena Busia on live zoom to discuss her life and work, and to share the thinking that led her to write her powerful and...
WatchPublishing Africa: Decolonial Strategies and Feminist Methodologies
This promises to be an exciting discussion, as it brings together a panel of great minds with extensive knowledge and experiences in publishing drawn from across the continent. Presenters will share insights and new ideas that emerge from the many...
Watch21st Century Feminist Social Movements and Struggles
The visibility of women on the frontlines of today's struggles for decolonisation, democratisation, economic justice and emancipation draw attention to women’s leadership and the feminist agendas of Africa’s 21st Century struggles. Feminist scholars draw on their understanding of the long...
WatchLessons in Nurturing Feminist Leadership and Transformation on the Continent
Many people tend to misconstrue the concept of feminism, it implications for leadership, decolonization and the transformation of the continent. Veteran feminist organizers and leaders Hope Chigudu, Paula Fray and Member of Parliament of Uganda, representing Mbarara City 2021-2026, Rita...
WatchRevolutionizing the Child – Literature for the Next Generation
"Educate a man and you educate a man, educate a woman and you educate the next generation" This panel explores the role and possibilities of children's literature for bringing about more just and equitable societies that have been imagined since...
WatchFeminist African Theory, Culture and Practice
This session will feature leading feminist theorists and activists who refuse to separate their radical ideas from their actions and practices . It focuses on the emergence and re-emergence of women's ideas and movements for freedom in the African region,...
WatchAfrican and Caribbean Feminisms
What comes to mind when you hear the word Feminist? Discussing this and the pan African literary imagination are panellists Eintou Pearl Springer, Attillah Springer, Virginia Phiri, Lia Viera, and Donna Aza Weir-Soley on the Hannah Kudjoe Stage on the...
WatchBeyond the Single Story: Performance and the Arts for the Liberation of Africans
The goal is to change the stereotypical, one-dimensional perspective that the Western media has painted Africans to be. This session should catalyze creatives into telling and making an art of original African stories. Gcina Mhlophe is our speaker, and she...
WatchFeminism and Pan Africanism
Women matter! There can be no true liberation without women's liberation, long recognised to be a central aspect in freedom struggles. The conversation in between feminism and pan Africanism is needed to ensure the necessary bridging between the dual struggles...
WatchDialogue on Gender and Sexuality in African Futurism
"How does the African Futurist genre (re)imagine gender norms, sexual identities, and issues of feminism on the continent? The contributors to a forthcoming issue of Feminsit Africa will explore questions of gender and sexuality in “African Futurism,” a term that...
WatchThe Future of African Farming: Agri-business of agri-culture?
How does Gender, Land and Agriculture connect as a theme in the African context of delivering the next generation?
WatchBuilding a Pan-African Cooperative Economy:Social Transformation viaCooperative Practices
The Pan African dream is not achievable without a thriving Economy. At this session we will explorewhat is takes to build and strengthen the cooperative sector on the continent. Open discussion on future strategies will be facilitated by Adotey Bing-Pappoe,...
WatchRadical Anti-Colonial and Pan-African Publishing in the Digital Era
Future planning session on the radical possibilities for anti-colonial, pan-African and feminist publishing that accrue from digitalization. How can Africans take advantage of digital technologies. Participants are invited to consult and share, with open discussion facilitated by two of AFrica's...
WatchInvisible Giants
How do Giants become invisible? Are giants not supposed to be visible? The paradox of this title will be explored at this round table session, facilitated by Marie-Helene Ndiaye and Coumba Toure on the final day, 24th of September
WatchRe-creating and Re-strategizing: The Radical Future of PanAfricanism
"Action without thought is empty, thought without action is blind" This final plenary discussion brings formidable radical activist intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora together share and discuss reflections on the future possibilities for more revolutionary, feminist and pan African...
WatchArchiving for the Next Generation: What should aPan African Peoples ArchiveLook Like?
Facilitated by two leading anti-imperialist archives, Nathaniel Moore from the Freedom ARchives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Judith Opoku-Boateng the session invites participants to share experiences that highlight the possibilities for new and digital ways of archiving the...
WatchClosing Ceremony: What Next for Pan-African Movements?
Keynote speaker AND Nkrumahist Dr Akwasi Aidoo reflects on the conceptualization and delivery of this years festival theme, and set the tone for follow-up activities and projects that will leverage 21st century pan-African, women's and youth mobilizations to a new...
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