Abstract

Join us for a talk with Dr. Duncan Omanga on Facebook, Digital-Deathworlds and Extra Judicial Killings of Criminal Gangs in Eastlands Nairobi. The talk and Q&A will be followed by drinks with the speaker. All are welcome to attend!

Abstract: This talk centres on Nairobi’s Eastlands culture of police extra-judicial killings of suspected gangsters that are foretold, announced and published on Community Policing Facebook groups- Nairobi’s digital deathworld-whose administrators are policemen. In particular, the talk explains how urban geocorpographies (how bodies acquire specific meanings in space) in the Eastlands neighbourhoods of Kayole, Dandora and Mathare, where the routine killing of suspected gang members already profiled on Facebook, reveal policing practices that are both a product of history and the state’s everyday performance of security. The talk draws from field work in Kenya and a digital ethnography- to provides a description of the digital deathworlds, whose many facets offers insights into policing logics, gang dynamics and a significant support of extra-judicial killings among the public.

Bio: Dr. Duncan Omanga is currently a British Academy visiting fellow at the Centre for Governance and Human Rights (CGHR), University of Cambridge (2018/9,) and a Senior lecturer of Media Studies in Moi University, Kenya. Dr. Omanga is a past Centre for African Studies visiting fellow, Cambridge (2015/6), and was the nominee for the 2017 Mary Kingsley Zochonis Lecture (ASAUK), SOAS . He has researched and published on digital media in relation to security, deliberation and democracy in East Africa.