As the Nigerian tradition of dressing in matching outfits for special events continues to grow in popularity, it brings with it a threat of social exclusion.
Traditional medicines sold at a South African market.
Rebecca and William Beinart
In the 1950s, the African yam was exploited by drugs firm Boots to produce cortisone. But South Africans fought back against the plundering of a plant that they used for traditional healing.
No South African photographer leaves a more substantial legacy than Santu Mofokeng. He was adept at mapping interior worlds through haunting images of black life and, above all, his landscapes.
Girls carry drinking water across a bridge in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
EPA/Nic Bothma
Opium played a fascinating role in southern African colonial politics, conflict and social change - from the poppy fields of Mozambique to the early days of Johannesburg city.
From colonial poppy fields to pharmatrash, southern Africa offers a fascinating history of drug regimes – one that helps us make sense of drug policies and legislation today.
A blind soccer player at training.
Philip Otuo/Starr FM
As early as 1500 the Bokoni people created stone-walled settlements that demonstrate their mastery of farming. But today these sites are under threat.
From left, Lungi Ngidi, fielding coach Justin Ontong and Kagiso Rabada of the South African cricket team during a training session ahead of a 2018 test match in Australia.
AAP/Richard Wainwright
Interviewing dozens of South African cricketers across all levels of the sport finds a perception that transformation has, in fact, slowed since the early 1990s.
Gender stereotyping might be funny, but it’s no joke. A public health professor explains why she took action against everyday sexism when she heard it in a radio advert.
There’s a growing awareness that Cambridge Analytica harnessed social media and personal data to influence elections.
Shutterstock
A survey of San ostrich eggshell beads - a common find at archaeological sites - paints a bigger picture of hunter-gatherers, herders and shifting cultural tradition.
Detail from a poster for the Codesa talks.
Judy Seidman
A retrospective exhibition displays the key works from the life and times of activist and artist Judy Seidman. She has used political posters as a galvanising force in the fight against injustice.
Mixed marriages are viewed suspiciously by European immigration officers.
Wikimedia Commons
For migrants, prejudice can be a life and death matter. Research in India and South Africa shows life is considerably harder if migrants have a darker skin and come from a poorer country.
Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine takes a selfie with Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Nelson Chamisa
Aaron Ufumeli/EPA-EFE
Bobi Wine in Uganda does it; so do the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa. The red beret is worn to signify the revolutionary. Its power lies in a symbolism that combines art and politics.
An archive project is restoring the secret history of Namibia’s resistance music culture from the 1950s to the late 1980s – suppressed and censored during apartheid but now touring the world.
A Zulu household, from an 1895 book called The Colony of Natal: An Official Illustrated Handbook and Railway Guide.
J Causton and Sons /University of California Libraries/ Flickr
A new history book shows how entanglements of race, gender, class and sexuality in South Africa flow from the moral contradictions of the settler colonial state.