Kenyan Academic Helps Shape Global Dialogue on Migration and Culture at Cambridge University » Capital News

Cambridge, UK, June 17 – Dr Natalya Din-Kariuki, a Kenyan-born scholar, played a pivotal role in Migrant Forms: Creative Futures, a symposium held at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge.

The one-day event brought together global artists, academics, writers, and chefs to examine how migration intersects with art and knowledge-making.

The symposium also served as a pre-launch for Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migrant Forms — a forthcoming book co-edited by Dr Din-Kariuki, Professor Subha Mukherji, and Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The book, set to be published by American publisher Punctum Books later this summer, features essays and reflections exploring how migration transforms and generates new forms of knowledge. Contributors span continents — including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America — and include migrants from a wide range of backgrounds.

Dr Din-Kariuki’s contribution to the subject draws not only on her academic expertise in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century travel literature but also on her personal connection to migration.

Her grandfather arrived in Kenya from India as a stowaway in the 1930s — a story that continues to shape her scholarly perspective.