Social media rarely hosts the kind of slow, generative thinking that conversations around Pan-Africanism and tribe-less ideologies need. Yet it's where they increasingly happen. We see: disputes over cross-cultural borrowing, appropriation of liberation language for social capital and clashes between attempts at connection and experiences of erasure. Paradoxically, it's also where many now encounter African indigenous cultures for the first time. What if we understood all of this: the callouts, the defensiveness, the territorial claiming, not as separate dramas but as symptoms of a deeper absence? We lack a shared framework for ethical relations. I offer one entry point into building that framework, not a rulebook but considerations we must keep making together.
Under the pain of not being engaged with, is the cry for something deeper: a restoration of dignity. Perhaps a call towards tending to the wounds that have been long inflicted by colonial legacies that are still active now. THE YTPIPO LEFT, (the italics and capitals are doing a lot of heavy lifting) YES, AND in their wake left some groups of people more privileged than others, left those Gayatri Spivak might call the comprador indigenous capitalist—those among us who, having been positioned closer to colonial power, now perpetuate extraction and hierarchy in its name. As self-implicating as it is to admit, we carry forth these legacies.
The formation of Kenya did not leave all of us in an equal relationship to the empire. So when we talk about being "Tribe-less" in order to solidify the Kenyan identity and combat political tribalism, or in the name of Pan-Africanism collapse Africans into a cultural one-pot dish, we are at a risk of replicating the dynamics that these sagacious ideologies sought to destroy.
To be Pan-African and "Tribe-less", does not mean, I think, to have access to any and all indigenous African traditions, knowledge systems and ways of being without a deference to those who belong to it. One cannot bequeath themselves the role of cultural custodian of knowledges they do not come from. I believe that to hold these ideologies means to be deeply committed firstly to your roots. To know your language, your history, your ancestors and yourself, or to be earnestly committed to that search while you are still finding your way. Only then can you venture to your neighbour’s homestead, respectfully knock on their door and wait to be welcomed in.1
Colonialism’s cultural violence produced racial labelling like "the tribe" which collapsed Black folks identities. Therefore, we understand that "Tribalism" was not built upon cultural pride, but a corrupted relation with self born within a captive mind. If we are to build Kenyan and African solidarities, we have to recognise this. I love how we, black folk are the same with our soup-stained tupperware and also how we are different in our cultural expressions. By acknowledging and respecting our differences we can forge stronger, more honest solidarities.
This brings me to my question and offering: We find ourselves in a Kenya and an Africa moving towards collective freedom, how can we be ethical in our relations with one another?2 We can do so by firstly, endeavouring to create internal grounding in our cultural roots then by leading with practices of consent, humility, accountability and mutual respect.
Counter arguments offer an enriching perspective to this thought by pointing out that not everyone has access to lineages that they can situate themselves within before forging connections beyond and that some of us also hold multiple lineages so collapsing us into one dimension is unfaithful to our realities. In our post-colonial reality, it is true that we are marked by different colonial violences.3 For example, I am of Banyala and Luo heritage by blood and Kikuyu by socialisation. Which lineage should I root in? This becomes even more complex for queer Africans navigating rejection from within their own communities—a rejection that is itself a colonial inheritance. Phew! But that deserves its own dedicated essay.
One might say that my proposal calls for gatekeeping which prevents intercultural collaboration/connection. To this I’d like to call to attention that our ancestors practiced different configurations of regulating knowledge such as rites of passage, initiation ceremonies and earned access to certain teachings. There must have been some wisdom in understanding that not all knowledge should be freely accessible to all people at all times.
Sometimes, engaging with a neighbor's practice becomes the bridge back to your own, and that is valid and beautiful. I write this with personal knowledge, having been exiled from my own homestead and having to find my way back through other doors. What I am calling for is ethical practice in that crossing: knock on doors, learn, participate, be transformed, but do so with clarity about what you're doing and accountability to those who hold the knowledge.
Reckoning with these two points, I suggest a third space of possibility: a co-creation with each other of a new thing built through solidarities pursuing collective liberation. What Bagele Chilisa calls ‘Third Space Methodologies’ in her book Indigenous Research Methodologies (p. 25). I am not so naive to imagine that we are all from ‘pure’ cultural lineages. Our ancestors had a myriad of interactions with each other, generative and violent that were interrupted and rerouted by the powers that be.
As global black folk, we have had to be bricoleurs when coming up with strategies of living and inherited lifesaving channels that we too, continue to perfect. Chilisa (p. 24) speaks on ‘Mixing as a methodology of survival for the oppressed’, where we form coalitions across our multiple cultures towards the joint goal of decolonisation. In this view, Pan-Africanism can be a bridge of connection as much as it is a system of rooting. Therefore, holding the indigenous understanding that knowledge is held collectively, not individually owned4 alongside the ethical practices we've been building—consent, humility, accountability, mutual respect—we can come up with innovative techniques/technologies of understanding ourselves and others. Dare I say, even see ourselves in each other!
Reference:
Bagele Chilisa, Indigenous Research Methodologies. (first published in 2012, second edition 2020)
Footnotes
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A deep knowing of self does not only mean connecting to your lineages, especially for those whose histories have been deeply disrupted or made extinct. It also means investigating the ways colonialism's imprint has left us with a rather reckless way of engaging with ourselves and each other, however well intentioned. That is where the danger lies and ethical pitfalls emerge. We are in a socio-cultural landscape that has created power imbalances among different indigenous ways of knowing with the west at the absolute top and the rest of us scattered along the hierarchy. Noting our own positionalities—cultural, socio-economic and historical—is essential in building an ethics of engagement that results in enriching connections. That too is a Pan-Africanist methodology ↩
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We must understand that ethics around cultural exchange are not stable rules but shared practices negotiated in community, moment by moment and across differences. ↩
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I implore us not to fall into traps of declaring inaccessibility when we are yet to exhaust the means available to us. If you look hard enough (even within) there are seeds of connection somewhere. Inaccessibility is also a tactic, and we must prevail against it ↩
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The tension between collective ownership and regulated access is intentional. Knowledge can be communally held within a group while still requiring consent and earned access across groups. These are not contradictions but different scales of the same ethics. Intra-community knowledge belongs to the collective, not any individual to profit from or claim. Inter-community sharing requires consent, earned trust and accountability. Both principles work together in service of ethical relations. ↩