Twenty years of stories that travel between continents

2024Journal article

Somalis, social media, creative urban diaspora and migration narratives in conflict

Vincenzo Cavallo Faras · Cultural Video Production and University of Oxford

Journal of Global Diaspora & Media, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 73–96 · Intellect

Findings from the first phase of the ERC project Conflict.NET, on the ‘narratives in conflict’ that emerge between different kinds of Somali migrants. The article asks why and how Nairobi became a creative hub for a Somali creative diaspora that challenges mainstream stories about identity and migration — and shows how these media makers, sharing similar agendas, have crossed platforms and gone mainstream.

Funded by the European Research Council · EU Horizon 2020 (award 716686)

doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00043_1

The films: Bufis – Daydreamers, Almost Somali

2022Journal article

African spacemaking: critical narratives and urban co-creation in five virtual reality (VR) productions

Andrea S. Kim (University of Southern California) · Vincenzo Cavallo (Cultural Video Production)

The Journal of Public Space, vol. 7, no. 1, special issue “Public Space and Placemaking in African Cities” · City Space Architecture / UN-Habitat

African artists and collectives are using XR to revive a ‘third space’ in urban storytelling — from expropriation in Lagos to surveillance in Nairobi. The article names this practice ‘spacemaking’ and analyses five works through in-depth interviews with their creators: The Other Dakar, Spirit Robot, Azibuye – The Occupation, Lagos at Large and African Space Makers, showing how artists co-create with their cities inside a Western technology.

Launched at the 11th World Urban Forum, Katowice 2022

doi.org/10.32891/jps.v7i1.1569

The films: African Space Makers

2020Book chapter

Neapolitan nights: from Vesuvian blues to planetary vibes

Vincenzo Cavallo · Iain Chambers (Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale)

In: Ten Cities — Clubbing in Nairobi, Cairo, Kyiv, Johannesburg, Berlin, Naples, Luanda, Lagos, Bristol, Lisbon, 1960 – March 2020, eds. J. Hossfeld Etyang, J. Nyairo, F. Sievers, pp. 263–280 · Spector Books, Leipzig · ISBN 978-3-944669-79-3

Fifty years of club music and public spheres under the volcano: from the Vesuvian blues of the 1970s to Naples as a node of planetary vibrations. Written with cultural theorist Iain Chambers for the Goethe-Institut research project Ten Cities, which reads clubs in ten African and European cities as laboratories of otherness where people experiment with new ways of being and claim their right to the city.

A Goethe-Institut Nairobi project · Silvia Gioiello was among the project’s curators

The films: Maskaniflani, Twende Berlin

2014Book chapter

Kenyan eParticipation ecologies and the rise of African techno-discourses: methodological and ethical challenges in understanding the role of ICTs in Kenya

Vincenzo Cavallo · Cultural Video Production

In: User-Centric Technology Design for Nonprofit and Civic Engagements, ed. Saqib Saeed, pp. 195–218 · Springer, Cham · ISBN 978-3-319-05962-4

Why the study of ICTs for democracy and development in Africa needs a different research approach, and how that shift can happen. Through the eParticipation ecology framework, the chapter follows how the Kenyan crowd-sourcing platform Ushahidi produced a techno-discourse about African cyberdemocracy, and asks how it is affecting Kenyan society.

Based on the PhD thesis “eParticipation and the theory of games”, IULM University, Milan, 2010. The academic side of the Nairobi years during which we produced documentaries about post-election violence in Kenya and the use of the Ushahidi platform.

doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05963-1_12

2013Book chapter

Ghosts that provoke violence

Sam Hopkins · Vincenzo Cavallo

In: Über(W)unden: Art in Troubled Times, eds. Lien Heidenreich-Seleme & Sean O’Toole · Jacana Media, Johannesburg, with the Goethe-Institut South Africa · ISBN 978-1-4314-0497-1

Written with Nairobi-based artist Sam Hopkins, the chapter reflects on the unresolved histories — the ghosts — that resurface as violence in Kenya, and on what artists working in the city’s public spaces can do with them. Part of an investigation into how artists from eight countries have creatively engaged with social trauma.

Grew out of the Über(W)unden conference hosted by the Goethe-Institut South Africa in 2011. Same years and same Nairobi public spaces as The Nrb Bus.

The films: Maskaniflani, Twende Berlin

2013Book chapter

Kenya e-participation ecologies and the theory of games

Vincenzo Cavallo · Cultural Video Foundation, Kenya

In: Human-Centered System Design for Electronic Governance, eds. Saqib Saeed & Christopher G. Reddick, chapter 16, pp. 272–289 · IGI Global, Hershey PA · ISBN 978-1-4666-3640-8

An e-Participation ecology is made of five elements — actors, contents, the traditional culture of participation, existing media skills and practices, and discourses in conflict — interacting across three macro-dimensions: cultural, political and socio-technological. The chapter applies game theory to this framework, using Kenya’s e-participation landscape as the case.

Develops the framework of the PhD thesis “eParticipation and the theory of games” (IULM University, Milan, 2010).

doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-3640-8.ch016