Mumbi Macharia

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Epistemically Disobedient

I tell stories about time, colonial time, African time, the time you think you’re running out of. I call it temporal disobedience. Some call it poetry.
I’m Mumbi Macharia, otherwise known as Mumbi Poetry, a writer, performer, and researcher passionate about language, time, culture, and decolonial imagination. Kenyan (currently producing time in Copenhagen, Denmark), I use storytelling, spoken word poetry, and academic inquiry to explore African identities, histories, and futures. This blog is a home for my reflections, creative work, and the questions that keep me up at night.

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  • before birthdays had dates
    by mumbimacharia
    how did my great grandparents remember their births and celebrate progression in life before the need for birthdays? I discuss this through John Mbiti’s event based time, sasa, and zamani.
  • The coloniality of time of the colonial invention of ‘woman’
    by mumbimacharia
    An essay on the dominant western capitalist concept of time, specifically the historicization of how time was colonized, and how it intertwines with the colonial invention of the social category of ‘woman’.
  • Reality is Colonial: Epistemic Violence, Existential Epistemology, and the Big Lie
    by mumbimacharia
    Hi my name is Mumbi, and in this essay I talk about the coloniality of knowledge and epistemic violence. Thinkers cited include Fanon, Ngũgĩ, Tamale, Ipadeola, Mitova, Mignolo, Du Bois, & Mudimbe. Thank you in advance for reading, and stay epistemically disobedient!
  • The Invention of Africa by V.Y Mudimbe
    by mumbimacharia
    Congolese philosopher Mudimbe (1988) said Africa as an essentialized generic concept was a colonial invention, but what does that mean for postcolonial panafrican scholarship, and how do we uninvent Africa?
  • Disobediently African: naming the world & other stories part 1
    by mumbimacharia
    Who gets to name the world? In the first post of her series “Disobediently African: naming the world,” Mumbi explores self definition while citing Fanon, Ngũgĩ, Spivak, and Mudimbe, asking what it means to think outside the colonial library

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ABOUT ME

“She is definitely indefatigable, and her creativity and oratory, a definition of the word.” – Afrowayent.com

I was born to write and perform poetry. I am a writer, performer, curator, content editor, copywriter, law school graduate, MA in African Studies graduate, and Sondeka Award’s Best spoken word poet of the year, Kenya 2020 & 2021.

Contact me