Sociologist j. Siguru Wahutu knows what to expect when people ask about his research.
"When I say that I work on media and genocide their faces get very serious very quickly," Wahutu said. "Everybody says, 'Oh, that's really important.' And then I say, 'Yeah, I know, but it's not dinner table conversation, right?'"
A native of Kenya, Wahutu studies the narratives that African journalists construct in covering genocide and mass atrocities in sub-Saharan Africa. His award-winning first book, "In the Shadow of the Global North: Journalism in Postcolonial Africa" (2024, Cambridge University Press), examines coverage of conflict this century in the Darfur region of Sudan.
In the latest edition of Office Hours, a Q&A series that introduces new Yale faculty members to the broader community, Wahutu talks about the ways Western journalism influences African journalists, his latest book project, and how one unwinds after a day of studying news coverage of the unthinkable.
| Title | Assistant Professor of Sociology and African Studies |
|---|---|
| Research interest | The effects of ethnicity and culture on media representations of human rights violations |
| Prior institution | New York University |
| Started at Yale | August 2025 |
You're teaching "Media and Mass Atrocities in Africa," a seminar for Yale College students. How do you approach issues of media representations of genocide in your teaching?
j. Siguru Wahutu: We walk through theories and methods on how to study media and the sociological underpinnings of studying media. Then we move to the coverage of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the atrocities that took place in Darfur, Sudan, from 2003 to 2008.
Students read scholars that have analyzed media representations of these atrocities. On the Rwanda genocide, they read academic writings by journalists who were on the ground reflecting on what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they felt like they were unfairly blamed for. We wrap class with a conversation about the role of journalism and memory formation post-conflict.
How do your students tend to perceive press coverage of Africa?
Wahutu: When I ask my students for their opinions of representations of Africa in the news, they'll run through of checklists of problems they have with it. Then I ask what media organizations they're thinking about. They'll name the Washington Post, The New York Times, the BBC, and the Guardian. And there's often almost an unawareness that Africans themselves are representing Africa.
There isn't a consideration about how Africans might represent Africa. I think that intellectually Africans have been pushed to the side as if they don't represent their continent. As an African, I think there's a moral imperative to remind people that Africans do tell stories and often tell amazing stories. But also, is it possible to tell contextually nuanced and relevant story about human suffering? What does that look like? And what are the politics of that? How do they think about their own role in archiving contemporaneous history and the process of witnessing these terrible events for people in their home audiences?
What have you learned about how African journalists tend to cover conflict and human rights abuses?
Wahutu: When you talk to journalists in African countries, they don't tend to think of themselves as war correspondents or as covering atrocities. They think of themselves as covering politics. And these human rights violations and conflicts are a version of politics.
And by and large, they'll also say that the West isn't doing a good job covering Africa. And that's where problems begin because African news organizations usually look to Western news organizations as a standard model for good journalism. But that model is the same one that you're saying is deficient, so why is it your model? It leads to African journalists replicating processes and narratives that they've criticized.
You're working on your second book. What is it about?
Wahutu: The book looks at tech companies that operate in Africa. It theorizes Silicon Valley in a similar way that we theorize early colonial trading companies, such as the Dutch East India Company. Part of my argument is that we should start treating tech companies in that way because what they're doing within the African cyberspace, metaphorically speaking, is erecting fences around the data they collect, which means they own it. If I'm a Kenyan and I'm using Uber, then Uber owns that data. The tech companies own this digital version of me.
For me, this came to a head during a disputed national election in Kenya that relied on electronic voting. The ballots were stored in the servers of a French tech company. There was an electoral dispute and the party in control argued that since the data was stored in France, it could not produce the voting records. The company asserted that the European Union's privacy laws prevented it from opening its servers. As a result, vital evidence could not be produced in court. It shows that a country's sovereignty can rest on digital records that are essentially being held at ransom somewhere else.
Working on these issues must be taxing. What do you do to unwind?
Wahutu: I do a few things: First, I don't do research at home. I work very hard to keep my home sterile from all the conflict and genocide I read about. I just need a break from it. When I'm relaxing, I like to play video games. I'm also an avid fan of the Manchester United soccer club.
When I feel I cannot do anything useful in my research, I turn to household chores. I do laundry. I clean the kitchen. I do the things that make me a human being and make me feel useful. It's surprisingly therapeutic.
