The 2026 Sawaba Fellowship
Not Pioneers of an Empty Land confronts the colonial myth that Africa and its people existed in an empty world, waiting to be discovered, named and remade. Instead, it begins from a different truth which is that we come from worlds already rich with knowledge, memory, stories, relationships, histories and ways of imagining collective life.
Through this theme, we invite attention to how the logic of the “empty land” continues to shape how we understand ourselves. It appears in the pressure to become the lone expert, the pioneer, the singular voice with an original idea, while forgetting the generations of knowledge that have carried us here.
The fellowship invites fellows to trace what has been preserved, inherited and carried forward, while exploring what becomes possible when we think beyond the epistemic, political and psychological borders imposed by coloniality. It is an invitation to remember that we are not pioneers of an empty land, but inheritors, custodians and co-creators of worlds that have always existed
Meet Tshegofatso Senne (South Africa)
Tshegofatso Senne is a Black, chronically ill, genderqueer community worker, sangoma, and founder of Hedone, exploring care, pleasure, and healing through storytelling and community practice. Their work spans zines, ceramics, design, and archival practices centred on Black queer life and transformative justice. Their TEDx talk Reimagining BDSM reflects on tenderness, love, and care as sites of liberation.
Meet Rana Ashraf (Egypt)
Rana Ashraf is an Egyptian multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and community builder working with conflict-affected communities across the SWANA region and Africa. Her practice brings together humanitarian work, transformative justice, and collective healing through decolonial and feminist approaches. She founded the Conflict and Repair Lab to nurture culturally rooted conversations on accountability, care, and community repair.
Meet Adomaa Adusei (Ghana)
Adomaa Adusei is a Ghanaian Afrofeminist writer, cultural practitioner, and community archivist exploring memory, feminist documentation, and knowledge production. She works with Buchei Feminist Collective, Drama Queens Ghana, and the Sihene Foundation to preserve intergenerational histories and food memory. Her writing examines historical erasure and the transformative possibilities of feminist archives.
Meet Boluwatito Sanusi (Nigeria)
Boluwatito Sanusi is an editor and researcher committed to Black cultural production and African epistemic recovery. As Assistant Editor at Cassava Republic Press, she leads Ankara Press, championing hopeful Black storytelling, while her research explores Yorùbá indigenous understandings of love and desire. She is a 2025 Toronto International Festival of Authors Fellow and a 2026 CODESRIA Fellow.