Sokari Ekine

Sokari Ekine
Occupation Activist, blogger, author
Known for Women's rights, LGBTI rights and environmental campaigns
Website sokariekine.me

Sokari Ekine is a Nigerian activist,[1] blogger[2][3] and author. She worked as a journalist at the Pambazuka News and has also written for Feminist Africa and New Internationalist. Ekine kept a blog between 2004 and 2014 in which she covered a number of topics including LGBTI rights, women's rights, and environmental issues. She has co-written or edited four books, and taught English to school children in Haiti.

Ekine has edited the books Blood and Oil: Testimonies of Violence from Women of the Niger Delta (2001),[4] SMS Uprising: Mobile Phone Activism in Africa (2010),[5] African Awakenings with Firoze Manji (2011), and Queer African Reader with Hakima Abbas (2013).

Life

Ekine was born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and British mother. She grew up in Nigeria but moved to England to attend college.[6] She holds a bachelor of science degree in new technology and a master of arts degree in rights in education from the Institute of Education at the University of London.[7]

Ekine lived in the United States for a number of years before returning to the UK, where she found work as a further education lecturer.[6][7] Her first venture online was in 1995 when she founded the Black Sisters Network email list.[8] Ekine was treated for cancer in 2000, a factor in her move to Spain with her partner in 2004.[6]

Ekine wrote a weekly column for the Pambazuka News for nine years and served as their online editor in 2007.[7] She began writing a blog, Black Looks, in 2004, which she continued for ten years.[9] Common writing topics were LGBTI rights in Africa, gender identity, militarisation, human rights, art, the oil industry in the Niger Delta, Haiti, activism. and land rights.[9][10] She began Black Looks 2 in 2014, a new blog focused on her photographic work.

Ekine is a social justice activist,[1] being involved in campaigning for more than 20 years.[10]

Ekine has also written for Feminist Africa and New Internationalist.[10] She has written of the struggles of women against state forces and oil companies in the militarised and environmentally damaged Niger Delta.[11] Ekine visited Haiti with Pambazuka News in 2007.[12]

In 2003 she was awarded an International Reporting Project fellowship from Johns Hopkins University and commissioned to write on health care in the country.[7][9] She subsequently worked in Port-au-Prince teaching English in high schools for non-governmental organisation Growing Haiti.[10]

Ekine was international representative for Niger Delta Women for Justice.[4]

In 2016, Ekine began working on a photographic narrative entitled Spirit Desire: Resistance, Imagination and Sacred Memories in Haitian Vodoun.

Publications edited by Ekine

  • Blood and Oil: Testimonies of Violence from Women of the Niger Delta. Centre for Democracy & Development, 2001. ISBN 978-1902296128. Second edition, 2011. "Testimonies by women of the Niger Delta on State sponsored and multinational violence over a period of 10 years from 1990."[13]
  • SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa. Pambazuka, 2010. ISBN 978-1906387358. Texts by Ken Banks, Nathan Eagle, Juliana Rotich, Christiana Charles-Iyoha, Anil Naidoo, Berna Twanza Ngolobe, Christian Kreutz, Redante Asuncion-Reed, and Amanda Atwood.
  • African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions. Pambazuka, 2011. Co-edited with Firoze Manji. ISBN 978-0857490216.
  • Queer African Reader. Pambazuka, 2013. Co-edited with Hakima Abbas. ISBN 978-0857490995.

Quotes

From an excerpt in SMS Uprising: Mobile Phone Activism in Africa:

“For social change to take place technology needs to be appropriate and rooted in local knowledge.”

References

  1. 1 2 Herringer, Mark (1 August 2013). "Open development and social impact bonds: rethinking healthcare delivery". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  2. ↑ Ford, Liz (2 April 2009). "Bloggers seek to influence G20 on development". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  3. ↑ "Found in translation". The Guardian. 12 December 2005. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  4. 1 2 Vidal, John; Branigan, Tania (22 July 2002). "Nigerian women take on ChevronTexaco". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  5. ↑ Perkins, Anne (3 February 2010). "Preparing for a mobile phone uprising in Africa". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  6. 1 2 3 "Nigerian blogger tackles taboos". BBC News. 5 July 2005.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "About". Black Looks. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  8. ↑ "Blogging Queer Africa. Interview with Sokari Ekine, April 2015". Barnard Center for Research on Women. Scholar and Feminist Online. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  9. 1 2 3 "Sokari Ekine". New Internationalist.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Ekine, Sokari — International Reporting Project". International Reporting Project. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  11. ↑ "Niger Delta: a quiet resistance". Red Pepper. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  12. ↑ "Solidarity & Sustainability: An Interview with Sokari Ekine". Black Agenda Report. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  13. ↑ Sokari Ekine. Blood and Oil: Testimonies of Violence from Women of the Niger Delta – via Internet Archive.
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