简介

Political Sociology of Language in Africa and the African Diaspora; African literature in English and Swahili; Politics of cultural production in East Africa; Cultural discourses on human rights in Africa; Islam and Identity in Africa and the African Diaspora. My current research project focuses on (post)colonial translation in Africa and explores the political dynamics in the interplay between text and context in the Swahili experience. The range of topics includes the colonial politics of Bible and Qur’an translation, the impact of post-Cold War globalization on translations of the Qur’an, the discourse on alternative “African modernities”, especially in Tanzania, arising from the translation of the Finnish epic, The Kalevala, new American politics of translation in East Africa after 9/11, and cyber-translation in comparative African context. I also have a special interest in human rights and civil liberties and have written policy reports on these subjects, including: Banditry and the Politics of Citizenship: The Case of the Galje’el of Tana River. Mombasa (Kenya): Muslims for Human Rights, 1999; Media Censorship in a Plural Context: A Report on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. London: Article 19 (International Centre against Censorship), 1998; Kayas Revisited: A Post-Election Balance Sheet. Nairobi (Kenya): Kenya Human Rights Commission, 1998; and Kayas of Deprivation, Kayas of Blood: Violence, Ethnicity and the State in Coastal Kenya. Nairobi (Kenya): Kenya Human Rights Commission, 1997.