Zainab Mohamed Jama’s article explores how Somali women have historically used poetry, especially the buraanbur form, to critique politics, assert autonomy, and transmit cultural values.

Often dismissed or sidelined, these oral literary forms play a powerful role in shaping public opinion, mediating conflict, and preserving collective identity. Jama argues that this poetry is not “soft culture” but political discourse with real effects, especially during periods of crisis.

Her analysis reveals the richness of women’s intellectual traditions in Somalia and challenges academic neglect of non-Western knowledge forms.

This reference was recommended by the Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective.

The Collective is a space for critical dialogue, activism, and scholarship that foregrounds Pan-African Indigenist ways of knowing, being, and creating. Formed by members of the Bartlett community dedicated to uplifting the voices, knowledge, and cultural legacies of people of African heritage and their respective Indigenous communities and lands, it aims to challenge colonial legacies and inspire transformation within institutional structures, research and curricula. By integrating creative and scholarly practices, the Collective works to restore narratives that have been silenced or misrepresented. Their work advances decolonial efforts in higher education by creating inclusive spaces and centring diverse African knowledge systems. Bartlett Alternative recognises the Collective’s vital contribution to broadening intellectual and cultural horizons through radical inclusivity and exclusivity, and thanks them for sharing resources that foreground lived experience, land-based knowledge systems, and epistemic justice.

Department Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment