About the Locals
The Locals is a research, storytelling initiative that centers local knowledge, lived experience, and community voices—through photography, video, film, writing, storytelling and advocacy to study and understand our cultures, communities and everyday lives.
Our goal is to build a sustainable foundation for visual anthropology and community evidence based storytelling. We are seeking $40,000 to establish a creative storytelling space, host local exhibitions, and co-create a growing archive of community stories rooted in dignity, everyday life, and cultural memory.
Our Understanding
We strongly believe that the people closest to the issues are also closest to the solutions.
What We Do:
- Research & Documentation
Community-led and participatory research that captures lived realities, not just statistics. - Storytelling & Media
Visual storytelling, writing, photo essays, short films, and exhibitions that humanize data and policy issues. - Advocacy & Influence
Translating community stories into insights that can inform NGOs, funders, media, and policymakers. - Capacity BuildingWe are building a community-based knowledge system through narrative curation.
We explore new and meaningful ways of documenting life, grounded in lived experiences, enquery, co-creation and collaboration. Our work blend photography, video, film, writing and storytelling to challenge stereotypes and reimagine how communities are seen and unseen. We are for everything worth remebering. We’re always happy to explain our thinking. But if we are changing the narrative, we must also change the process. The stories we tell are shaped by how they are gathered, who is involved, and who holds the power. If we are responsible for representing communities, then communities must lead the method.
Visual Anthropology
Too often, the stories of places like Kibera are told from the outside, filtered through distant perspectives that miss the depth, nuance and humanity of daily life.The Locals exists to reclaim narrative power, document lived experiences and produce community-rooted knowledge through photography, video, film,writing, research and dialogue.
A visual Anthropology of kibera and Fashion
Through immersive fieldwork, exploring the intersections of fashion, identity, agency, sustainability and cultural pride. Using portraits, behind-the-scenes moments and environmental context, this work documents how grassroots fashion is used a site for protest, resilience, beauty and belonging.
A visual Anthropology of Aging with Care & Dignity.
In Nairobi’s Kibera at Kibera Day Care Center for the Elderly, a community of older persons continues to shape their life, preserve collective memory, care for one another, and contribute to their community while navigating the realities of aging, health challenges and social invisibility. Through intimate interactions of daily life, Seen & Unseen: Aging with Dignity reveals how growing old in one of Africa’s most dynamic urban communities is both a struggle and an act of resilience.
Markets Sustainability, Culture & Exchange
How does tradition and modernity converge in market life where commerce, technology, social relationships and western influence meet. In collaboration with Parijat Chakrabarti (Erb Institute, University of Michigan), the project investigated Nairobi’s local markets as vital social and economic ecosystems. Beyond trade, markets are living environments in which culture, creativity and community persist on a daily basis.
Motherhood, Girlhood & Second Chances in Kibera
The visual project documents the lives of teenage mothers supported by Soraya, a community-based organization in Kibera. Through visual and narrative portraits, it explores the intersections of motherhood, education, stigma and hope. It focus on stories of strength, vulnerability, and transformation portraying young mothers as leaders in their own right.
Otamatsuri: Pop Culture, Fandom & Urban Belonging
Central Question ; how is global pop culture localized and reinterpreted within Nairobi’s creative scene. Kenya’s and Africa’s first and largest exclusive anime and manga convention—as a site of cultural expression, youth identity, and community formation. Focusing on cosplay, gaming tournaments, Music, including J-pop, K-pop, live performances and shared experiences, Otamatsuri embodies characters from anime, games, and films. Vibrant marketplace of exhibitors, including local vendors such as Nairobi Otaku Shop and a cultural hub where community, identity, and global influences converge in contemporary urban Africa.
Africa Bonodori: Culture, Exchange & Belonging
Central Question ; how does diasporic and local communities come together to reimagine tradition and create spaces where cultures meet, adapt, and coexist in contemporary Nairobi. Centered on Africa Bonodori Festival, a traditional Japanese summer celebration held in Nairobi, this visuals explores cultural exchange, identity, and global belonging within an African urban context. The experiences of authentic Japanese food trucks, Bon Odori dance accompanied by Japanese music, cosplay, and vibrant cultural performances.
Our Approach to research & Inquiry
Opening doors to knowledge, spaces, and voices that often go unnoticed or overlooked.
Doing deep, ethical, community-centered research.
Shifting the center of storytelling from the outsider’s lens to the lived realities, language and wisdom of those at the heart of the story.
Working together with community, Hand in Hand.
Preserving memory for dignity, history, and future generations and advocacy
Our Vision
The Locals Research & Storytelling Exchange envisions a future in which communities are recognized not merely as subjects of documentation but as producers of knowledge, culture, and history. Through ethnography, visual storytelling, and collaborative research, we aim to establish a modest physical space that serves as a hub for exhibitions, editing, workshops and archiving. Storytelling labs that invite community members to explore everyday life through visual and narrative expression continue building a living community archive that preserves oral histories, photographs and reference materials.