Seminar and Book Launch with Dr Yusuf Serunkuma

Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS) and the Global Political Economy (GPE) group at the School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) invite you to two engaging academic events

About Yusuf Serunkuma: Dr Serunkuma is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, at KU Leuven in Belgium. He is a cultural studies major, who focuses on nationalist sentiments and new colonialism. He has researched and taught courses in decolonial studies, literature and political economy. He is also a columnist in Ugandan newspapers, The Observer and a playwright. He is the author of the play, The Snake Farmers, a recommended reading for high schools in Rwanda and Ugandan. The Meat Festivals by Fountain Publishers is his latest play and is also recommended for high school curricula in Uganda. Dr Serunkuma writes regularly for ROAPE, The Elephant in Kenya and the Pan-African Review in Rwanda. His latest book is titled Surrounded: Democracy, Free Markets and Other Entrapments of New Colonialism (Kampala: Editor House Facility, 2025). His other recent publications include:
 
•    2025: Expulsion as decolonization: Idi Amin's ghost, Asian "repossession" and re-domination of Uganda's economy. Public Culture 36(3):391–408.
•    2024: Decolonial dilemmas: the deception of a "global knowledge commonwealth" and the tragedian entrapment of an African scholar. Africa Spectrum 59(1):10–24. 
•    2024: "These Somalis are not Somalis:" cup of art, Italian coffeehouse, authentic identities, and belonging in Hargeisa, Somaliland. African Studies Review 67(1):157–176.
•    2022: Non-essential humans: essays on governance, run and survival in Covid-19 Uganda. Kampala: Editor House Facility.
•    2022: Before the first drop: oil, capitalists, and the wretcheds of Western Uganda. Edited with Eria Serwajja. Kampala: Editor House Facility.
•    2019: The academia is a marketplace: history, context and decolonization at Makerere University. AnthroSource 2(1):119–130.
 
Event details:
 
Seminar with Dr Yusuf Serunkuma: ‘Breaking the bank: rereading forgery and fraud in the postcolonial neo-colonized world’

Date: Thursday 8 May 2025.
Time: 10:00–12.00.
Venue: Newlyn SR (1.07).
Welcome: Abel F. Ugba. Acting Director of LUCAS.
Chair: Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe.
 
Seminar Summary: This seminar discusses forgery and fraud as a counter public – an alternative, almost subversive authentication of claims (identity, knowledge and ownership) towards mobility and survival. Dr. Serunkuma examines how counterfeit and forgery – often perceived negatively – can be understood as forms of resistance and survival strategies often meant to level the playing field where colonial – modern bureaucracy – is not only disconnected from the lived realities of ordinary folks, but also often privileges those in power. Focusing on the manufacture of documents in East Africa, this seminar highlights the ways in which ordinary folks negotiate their dreams, interests and livelihoods in a system often designed to keep them outside.
 
Book launch talk: ‘Surrounded: towards a critical decolonial theory’
 
Date: Thursday 8 May 2025.
Time: 14:00–16:00.
Venue: William Bragg LT (2.37).
Welcome: Abel F. Ugba. Acting Director of LUCAS.
Chair: Jörg Wiegratz.
 
Lecture Summary: Serunkuma's latest book, Surrounded: Democracy, Free Markets and Other Entrapments of New Colonialism, is a powerful collection of essays calling for revolutionary action against disguised forms of new colonialism. Drawing from critical legal studies and critical race theory, Dr. Serunkuma introduces critical decolonial theory (CDT) and examines modern political ideals like civil society, democracy, human rights and scholarship (‘publish or perish’), among others as tools of colonial control. This public presentation of Dr Serunkuma explores how these ideals perpetuate colonialist extractions urging a rethinking of Afrocentric versions of these concepts.

Both events are free and do not require registration. If you have any queries, please email Dr Jörg Wiegratz at J.Wiegratz@leeds.ac.uk.