My UWCSEA journey: Re-imagining the possible Ng’ang’a Muchiri ’04, Assistant Professor of English in the US, pursuing research in East Africa

MY UWCSEA JOURNEY: RE-IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

Ng’ang’a Muchiri ’04

“My two years at UWCSEA gave me an incredible experience in looking reality right in the face, and then creating big, fancy dreams that are whimsical yet true to my passions. I believe this is the spirit behind such activities as UWCSEA’s Initiative for Peace. In the real sense, what do a group of 16–18 year olds know about the Middle East peace process or the Kashmir crisis? And yet again, what if we re-organised the way we think about conflict resolution to include marginalised groups? How could we as a global community “do” world peace better if there was a seat at the negotiating table for people living with disabilities, for families devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, for victims of mass incarceration? If these questions seem out of place, that is only because we have failed to re-imagine what’s possible. And that’s one thing the UWC movement is great at, helping us move beyond the present towards futures that are more aligned with our intrinsic values of justice, sustainability, equality, and kindness.” Ng’ang’a Muchiri is an assistant professor, writer and photographer. He attended UWCSEA as a National Committee scholar from Kenya and then went on to achieve a BA in Engineering Studies and English at Lafayette College, a MA in English Language and Literature at the University of Miami and in 2015, a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Miami. He currently works as Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, teaching courses in African Literature and pursuing research in East Africa’s land rights, African digital humanities and African visual and cultural studies.

Asked to describe his current activities and focus of work he says, “I have been photographing East Africa for the last two decades, starting before I left Kenya for Singapore, and all the way through my gap year experience in Kigama. I love what photographs can do. They force strangers to hold conversations that enrich community; a picture can help heal political rifts just as easily as it can inflame civil strife. An image is a powerful metaphor for understanding the world around us. And I truly believe that magic happens in galleries, museums, and photo exhibitions. For a short span of time, you see the public transformed into a vibrant collective. Because of how much museums can achieve, I have started an initiative called the Rift Valley Museum of Photography. Its raison d’etre is the production and dissemination of African-centered visual stories. I think there is a deep hunger for content that is responsive to the creative energy across the African continent. In fact, I believe it’s quite possible for Rift Valley Museum of photography to grow into a network of 100 gallery spaces across 100 African cities by the year 2040! And that’s my goal. My travel and my research have both had a lot to do with listening recently. I just did an amazing journey from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Lusaka, Zambia by rail. The TAZARA railway line is a relic of an older kind of global cooperation— between China, Tanzania, and Zambia. But travelling on it in 2017 you experience this wonderful tension of a region that is rapidly urbanising, while struggling to figure out what to keep and what to discard. And that conversation is happening in all sorts of interesting ways: the cuisine, the kinds of clothes people wear, how travelers deploy social media, etc. From a research perspective, I had an amazing time recording all sorts of interesting sounds/voices. The next step for me is to collate them into an online archive that incorporates some of the new work happening in the field of African Digital Humanities.” To view some of Ng’ang’a Muchiri’s photography, visit

www.nmuchiri.com