H. Nanjala Nyabola

H. Nanjala Nyabola (2017) is a Nairobi-based political analyst, writer, and humanitarian advocate. Her accomplished academic career has focused on forced migration in Africa, and includes two MSc degrees from the University of Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. She also holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Nanjala was awarded the inaugural Foreign Policy Interrupted Fellowship, designed to amplify the work of women around the world in foreign policy analysis. She currently conducts independent research on politics and society in Kenya.

Nanjala has published extensively in academic and non-academic outlets, including opinion pieces and analysis in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine, IRIN, Pambazuka Press and the New African Magazine. She is a frequent speaker in various conferences around the world touching on contemporary African politics and society.

As a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow Nanjala will complete a nonfiction manuscript about the impact of technology on politics in Kenya and African political agency in the digital era. Her writing considers the increasing influence of technology on politics and elections globally, as demonstrated by the Brexit vote in the U.K. and the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. But her focus is on Africa and, specifically, Kenya, in part to upend the flawed logic that technology trends only impact the West. The book illuminates some of the complex forces shaping the uptake and use of technology in politics, and, using a case study approach, identifies key moments where online action influenced offline behavior.