Guest Lecture by Dr. Oduor Obura

In May 2026, the Potsdam Postcolonial Studies Collective hosted the lecture “Decolonising Safari in Eastern Africa.” The lecture centralises a historiographical approach into the colonialist anthropology and life writings of the safari. I argue that there are epistemological foundations in the persistence of a hierarchical racialised language during the safari. I analyse broad textual sources ranging from early travel literature, current museum curations, imaginary texts and digital platforms as manifestations of the knowledge on racial differences. Critical conversations on race and racialisation enable me to visit selected texts on safari and ultimately to sightsee a trajectory of nuanced racialised practices and their inevitable agential aftermaths. Therefore, I use decolonial thinking as an inspirational analytical imperative to navigate the entanglement of race and safari. This enables me to destabilise the colonial foundations and [ab]uses of the safari culture, from local eastern African voices. I argue that there exists a duality of the transformed and disruptive mode of the safari culture in the present day