The Funambulist

17/06/2025

We are excited to announce that our new issue "The Colonized & the Atomic Bomb" (July–August 2025) is going to be out in two weeks from now!

Until July 01, we offer the possibility to pre-order the print+digital version of our forthcoming issue, which mobilizes Indigenous perspectives on interconnectedness between distant lands and peoples 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On August 6th and 9th, we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the devastating US nuclear bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our contribution to the significance of these two massacres consists in convoking Indigenous perspectives from lands that have been exploited for these two bombings.

The cover artwork is by Roger Peet.

Pre-order our 60th issue now to receive your print copy at the earliest.

Preorder your copy here: https://thefunambulist.net/shop/60-colonized-atomic-bomb

16/06/2025

On January 23, 2025, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act, 2024 that allows the state to expropriate land without financial compensation. The law has caused outrage among white South African landowners, as well as the current US administration that went as far as offering asylum to expropriated settlers. For people whose efforts are dedicated to redressing Indigenous sovereignty on stolen land, the spirit of this legislation goes in the right direction. In the following text, Zoé Samudzi provides some much needed historic and political contextualization.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

PHOTOS BY MPHO MATHEOLANE On January 23, 2025, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act, 2024 that allows the state to expropriate land without financial compensation.

13/06/2025

"You have arrived, you are here. Grey blue skies, skies of grey and blue, but centuries of sun have arrived with you. We know the ways of water, we know the ways of man, you are right to be here. They are all as naked as you, as foreign as you on this land; past, present, and future walk with you, you are strong here. Castor oil, wooden combs, mother’s breath and magic, your roots walk with you. The Mothership carries you, you belong here."

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

ARTWORKS AND TEXT BY TESSA MARS Daughter, some places can only be accessed with your eyes closed, your feet taking you over the land, air, and water of dreams. You must prepare for the journey and be…

12/06/2025

In numerous geographies, colonial states use hydropower as part of their infrastructure supplying the settler economy, while further dispossessing Indigenous peoples from their land. The following text written by Ron Reed and Alaa Suliman Hamid describes how the commonality of this experience from Káruk country to Nubia allows them to learn from each other’s struggles and political victories, and to construct forms of solidarity.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

In numerous geographies, colonial states use hydropower as part of their infrastructure supplying the settler economy, while further dispossessing Indigenous peoples from their land.

09/06/2025

We continue publishing brilliant theses by a new generation of architecture or design graduates. In the following pages, Meena Chowdhury shares with us the work she has done questioning normative forms of architectural representations, understanding their great limitations when attempting to depict the refugee condition. Through sewing, she has found a practice that more aptly represents the journey of her mother (from whom she learned this skill), from Vietnam to the Philippines to Canada.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

We continue publishing brilliant theses by a new generation of architecture or design graduates. In the following pages, Meena Chowdhury shares with us the work she has done questioning normative…

02/06/2025

One of the key editorial arguments of this issue is that when it comes to examining the Black Indigenous nexus, Melanesia (and western Oceania at large) is a key site of knowledge production. Conversations and debates on this topic are also enriched by Afrodescendant and/or Afrodiasporic Oceanians who carry with them their own relationship to both Indigeneity and Blackness. The epistolary dialogue that follows between Makanaka Tuwe and Nathan Rew constitutes a fragment of such conversations and allows us to reflect on numerous nodes of commonality and specificities.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MAKANAKA TUWE AND NATHAN REW One of the key editorial arguments of this issue is that when it comes to examining the Black Indigenous nexus, Melanesia (and western Oceania at…

29/05/2025

The art of Maya Mihindou is not unknown to The Funambulist’s regular readers. For this issue, we commissioned her these drawings in relation to quotes from Ladislas Ndembet, answering her questions in 2023 as part of research on Gabonese forests for her contribution to the 47th issue of the magazine (Forest Struggles, May-June 2023).

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

DRAWINGS BY MAYA MIHINDOU QUOTES BY LADISLAS NDEMBET The art of Maya Mihindou is not unknown to The Funambulist’s regular readers. For this issue, we commissioned her these drawings in relation to…

26/05/2025

Regular readers of The Funambulist will be familiar with Menna Agha’s words about her understanding of Nubian Indigeneity as a set of deep relationships with the land—of which the Nile is a central component. The following conversation is built on a prior discussion about Indigeneity in Nubia and the Somalian region, which we organized between Nasra Abdullahi and her in February 2025.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

A CONVERSATION WITH MENNA AGHA Regular readers of The Funambulist will be familiar with Menna Agha’s words about her understanding of Nubian Indigeneity as a set of deep relationships with the land—of…

22/05/2025

In the context of this issue, we felt it was important to give special attention to the Businenge of Guyana and Suriname, where these Maroon communities have acquired Indigenous legal status. This project, by Martiniquean Creole anthropologist Marc-Alexandre Tareau and Guianese Creole photographer Karl Joseph, associates the Businenge relationship to Amazonian biodiversity with those of other communities of African descent in French Guiana (continental and archipelagic Caribbean Creoles). We present an excerpt of this project here.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

PHOTOS BY KARL JOSEPH TEXT BY MARC-ALEXANDRE TAREAU TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH BY LÉOPOLD LAMBERT In the context of this issue, we felt it was important to give special attention to the Businenge of…

19/05/2025

This issue’s editorial line rejects the opposition often suggested between Indigeneity and migration. Indigeneity implies a specific relationship with the land, but it is not something that ceases to exist the moment people are no longer in contact with this land. We asked Semhar Haile to reflect on this claimed opposition through the particular historical example of the Eritrean national consciousness in relation to the Ethiopian Empire and the diaspora that emerged from it.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

This issue’s editorial line rejects the opposition often suggested between Indigeneity and migration. Indigeneity implies a specific relationship with the land, but it is not something that ceases to…

12/05/2025

"If you want to destroy a people first you kill their gods
Infect them with diseases brought from your own lands
and when they die tell them it’s divine punishment
and that the survivors live only by your God’s grace.

Tell them Land is not their relative
but something to hold dominion over
so you can poison “it”
and not be called a murderer.

Turn their ancestors into demons.
so that their ears are hardened
when the spirits of their grandparents visit them in dreams
to warn them about you."

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

POEMS BY MARA MAHONEY ARTWORKS BY RATU ROPATE RAKŪITA WAILUTU K**A If you want to destroy a people first you kill their gods Infect them with diseases brought from your own lands and when they die…

09/05/2025

How does the trajectory of a stone being thrown register (or not) within the trajectories of celestial bodies? How does the temporal trajectory of settler colonialism register (or not) within the temporal trajectory of the cosmos? Nolan Oswald Dennis shares a short note and digital sketch from a new body of work that asks such questions, in particular with regard to the Black South African struggle for the recovery of Indigenous land.

Read more in our current issue "Black Indigeneities" (May–June 2025).

ARTWORK AND TEXT BY NOLAN OSWALD DENNIS How does the trajectory of a stone being thrown register (or not) within the trajectories of celestial bodies? How does the temporal trajectory of settler…