'Dialogue and Dissent': changemaking and transformative power in Africa
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
- Venue
- Main Building
- Room
- R101
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
We are living through a political moment in which questions of equity, agency and collective power have acquired renewed urgency. From Colombia to Kenya, and from the United States to South Africa, fractures along the lines of age, race, gender identity and class are becoming more entrenched.
These tensions are mobilised through responses to identity-based discrimination, undocumented migration and increasingly restrictive border controls, as well as through trade tariffs and visa bonds. At the heart of these contestations lies a fundamental question: how do we live together in ways that enable us to forge more generative and equitable futures?
In this conversation, we centre African experiences to discuss the role of political education and constitutional frameworks; the responsibility of universities; Africa’s role on the global stage; and how we harness diplomatic and regional partnerships across the Majority World to organise across difference and build more just worlds.
About the speaker
Irūngū Houghton is a leading African human rights advocate who most recently served as Executive Director of Amnesty International Kenya from 2018 to June 2026. Irũngũ is the author of Dialogue and Dissent: A Constitution in Search of a Country, and an award-winning strategist whose work bridges grassroots activism and global human rights discourse.
Ambassador Maurice Makoloo is the High Commissioner of the Republic of Kenya to the United Kingdom, appointed in January 2026. He also serves as Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Previously, he was Kenya’s Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Offices and International Organizations in Vienna, with concurrent accreditation to several Central and Eastern European countries. His multilateral leadership roles included Chair of the Africa Group of Ambassadors, Chair of the G77 and China (Vienna Chapter), Vice-Chair of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission, and Governor on the IAEA Board of Governors.
Professor Adam Habib is currently the Vice Chancellor of SOAS University of London. Prior to this, Professor Habib was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa from 2013 to 2020.
Organisers
Hosted by the Feminist Centre for Racial Justice, the Centre for African Studies and the Africa cluster in the Department of Politics and International Studies.
