Din-Kariuki: Kenyan voice at global migration dialogue at Cambridge symposium

 

 Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Professor Subha Mukherji of Cambridge University and Dr Natalya Din-Kariuki pause for a photo with their forthcoming book on migrants. [Courtesy]

A Kenyan writer and academic, Dr Natalya Din-Kariuki, is among three editors whose publication was featured at a landmark symposium on migration held at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge.

Din-Kariuki is one of three editors of the forthcoming book Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migrant Forms, alongside former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Professor Subha Mukherji of Cambridge University.

The volume, to be published later this year by Punctum Books, brings together personal stories and critical reflections from across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

It examines how migration changes not just where people live, but how they live, create, and remember.

The symposium, held early in the week titled ‘Migrant Forms: Creative Futures’, brought together artists, writers, chefs, and migrants from around the world to explore how movement shapes identity, culture, and creative expression.

Born and raised in Kenya, Dr Din-Kariuki draws on both personal and historical experience. Her grandfather left India in the 1930s as a stowaway and built a life in Kenya.

That journey, unexpected, risky, and transformative, continues to shape how she approaches questions of belonging and movement.

“Migration is not only about leaving something behind,” she said during the symposium. “It is also about carrying something forward. About shaping new ideas, new art, and new ways of being.”

Her contribution to Crossings explores how migrants carry knowledge through memory, language, and daily life, not just through formal education, but through food, storytelling, and cultural practice.

The symposium featured performances, readings, and conversations on migration’s role in shaping artistic and intellectual life. One of the most striking moments came from Syrian chef Faraj Alnasser, who prepared a meal while recounting his journey of rebuilding a life in Cambridge after fleeing Aleppo.

Dr Din-Kariuki’s role in this project reflects a broader shift that African thinkers are not being included for diversity’s sake; they are helping define the terms of global engagement.

Crossings will be published later this year. It reflects a clear shift in how migration is being understood, with African thinkers contributing not as respondents to global narratives but as authors of them.

Dr Din-Kariuki’s work reinforces this shift, placing Africa at the centre of the conversation on movement, identity, and cultural exchange.