Sera na Sauti

How did a market built through dispossession become central to the everyday livelihoods of millions of East Africans, yet remain one of the country’s most precarious and contested urban spaces?In this episode of Sera na Sauti, Ruth Nyakerario, a researcher and writer whose work centers on urban marginality, displacement, and informal systems, speaks with Mwangi Mwaura, a PhD candidate in...

In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we speak with Dr. Mugambi Laibuta, legal scholar and chair of the Data, Privacy and Governance Society of Kenya, whose work has shaped national debates on privacy, data protection, and civil liberties. He traces the long history of privacy in Kenya’s constitutional text and unpacks how it led to the 2019 Data Protection Act, while also examining the tensions...

What if the reason nothing seems to change, even when we protest, is because the very language we use has already narrowed what we’re allowed to imagine?In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we speak with Kenyan feminist writer and scholar Mumbi Kanyogo about the hollowing out of Kenyan politics and how the vocabulary of “good governance,” accountability, and reform has quietly replaced more radical...

Note: this episode was recorded before the passing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.What happens when you spend three days living with one of the most recognisable names in African literature, and the story you tell after doesn’t fit the public script?In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we sit down with Kenyan writer Carey Baraka to talk about writing, literary memory, and the questions that followed his...

How did Kenya's debt spiral so far out of control that 60% of government revenue now goes to debt service, and how did the constitutional safeguards designed to prevent exactly this get steadily bypassed?In this episode of Sera na Sauti, Cheptum Toroitich sits down with economist and policy analyst Kwame Owino to unpack how Kenya arrived at this crisis — and whether the country can still pull...

🗣️ What do we really know about Tom Mboya—and why does his assassination still remain unanswered?In this episode, we sit down with Ngartia—writer, performer, and co-founder of Too Early For Birds—to revisit the life, assassination, and evolving legacy of Tom Mboya through the lens of theatre.Mboya, the play first staged in 2019 and revived in 2024, isn’t just a tribute. It’s an excavation. We...

What does it mean to trace a family line through silence, absence, and war? In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we sit down with writer Lutivini Majanja to explore the untold stories of African conscripts in World War I—through the personal and haunting story of her great-grandfather, Odanga.Drawing from her evocative essay Odanga Is Still Fighting, Lutivini shares with us the forgotten world of...

What happens when centuries-old governance systems and a long-standing economic way of life like pastoralism meet a modern state still in formation?In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we sit down with Dalle Abraham, a Kenyan writer documenting the complex realities of Northern Kenya, to explore how pastoralism, traditional governance, and national borders shape identity and governance.Drawing from...

What do the origins of a city tell us about power, resistance, and identity? In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we sit down with A.K. Kaiza, a renowned Ugandan writer and journalist, to unpack the hidden histories of Kampala—its colonial violence, its evolution, and the legacies that still shape it today.Drawing from his powerful essay The Violent Birth of Kampala in Debunk Quarterly, Kaiza takes...