rich 1.0 In this episode, Awa Sow sits down with poet and community organiser Binta Yade to unpack the boxes we inherit: gender, sexuality, ethnicity, identity, and the binaries that shape how we understand ourselves and one another. Together, they explore the colonial roots of many of these categories, from the imposition of Western ideas in Sub-Saharan Africa to the ways identity is navigated across the diaspora. Through personal reflections and wider conversations around belonging, they ask what happens when we stop seeing identity as fixed and begin questioning the lines we’ve learned to live within. REFERENCES Oyewumi, O., 1997. The Invention of Women: Making An African Sense Of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mamdani, Mahmood. "What is a tribe." Lond. Rev. Books 34 (2012): 20-22. Yade, Binta. Homophobia in Sub-Saharan Africa: The B*stard Child of the West. Edited by Kia Kiasuka-Kiakanda. Google Doc. Accessed June 25, 2026. Google Doc JINGLE “Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠ (https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights) CONTRIBUTORS Host: Awa Sow Guest: Binta Yade Edited by: Awa Sow Diaspora Diaries https://audioboom.com/channels/5166886-diaspora-diaries Audioboom https://audioboom.com 480 95 https://audioboom.com/i/43715594/600x600/c 600 600 <iframe width="100%" height="95" src="https://embeds.audioboom.com/posts/8921209/embed?v=202301" style="background-color: transparent; display: block; padding: 0; width: 100%" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="allowtransparency" scrolling="no" title="Audioboom player" allow="autoplay" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>