Black worldmaking to reclaim our Heritage and humanity
Kindred Creation offers a path home to an embodied African identity, one that embraces sacred Black personhood against assimilation and colonization and shows readers that designing a future beyond survival isn’t only possible—it’s a necessary reclamation.
The colonial violence and dispossession of African land, language, and labor are inflicted intentionally—and by design. Reclaiming African lifeways and remembering what was forcibly forgotten must also be by an embodied re-knowing rooted in kinship, care, and liberation. Author, organizer, and designer Aida Mariam Davis excavates the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, making explicit the ways in which extraction, oppression, and enslavement serve the goals of empire—not least by severing ancestral connections and disrupting profound and ancient relationships to self, nature, and community. Structured in three parts—Remember, Refuse, and Reclaim—Kindred Creation is a philosophical guidebook and a vital invitation to power and reconnection. Davis employs parable, poetry, theory, memory, narrative, and prophecy to help Remember: By unforgetting the unending and cascading violence of settler colonialism and other forms of domination and exploring the ways that African land, language, lifestyle, and labor are stolen, distorted, and repackaged for colonial consumption to extract capital and sever ties to ancestral knowledge, lifeways, and dignity.Refuse: By rejecting and interrupting death-making institutions and relationships and choosing kinship and self-determination in the face of settler colonial violence.Reclaim: By revealing that freedom is within us—and within reach. Davis shares how the reader can birth new worlds and relationships and offers strategies for reclaiming land, language, lifestyle, and labor. Feminist, liberatory, and spanning East Oakland to Ethiopia and beyond, Kindred Creation is a call and response to dream and design better worlds rooted in African a path to Black freedom, a love letter to Black futures, and a blueprint to intergenerational Black joy and dignity—all (and always) on Black terms.
Aida Mariam Davis holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and African American studies from the University of California, Berkeley in addition to a Master’s from the University of Southern California in Public Policy and Public Administration. Davis is currently the Chief People Officer of the Sierra Club. Davis founded and led Decolonize Design, a boutique consulting firm with clients spanning the nonprofit sector, philanthropy, and Fortune 500 companies. She created the Belonging, Dignity, Justice, and Joy (BDJJ) framework as an alternative to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) industrial complex. Her writing can be found online and in print at various publications, including Stanford Social Innovation Review, World Economic Forum, Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, and UC Berkeley Diaspora Magazine. She teaches a class on social innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Simply put, I don’t want a seat at the colonizers’ table and I don’t want to renovate their house.”
I acknowledge that I am not the intended audience of this book, but as someone passionate about decolonisation and Antiracism, and the parent of a Black child, I found this a brilliant and integral book with a seminal approach to decolonising your mind and life.
I am very thankful to Aida Mariam Davis, North Atlantic Books and Netgalley for the ARC
Thank you northatlantic for the alc and finished copy of this book!
I’m sure you all have heard me post about this book. This book is special for many reasons - 1. I know Aida personally and 2) I had the opportunity to moderate my first in-person book club with her!
I always keep my reviews honest so just know these thoughts are all my own. I loved this book because of all of the things I learned from it. Aida has done so much research and that’s evident in this book. The book is broken down into three parts, Remember, Refuse and Reclaim. And in the bok, she challenges to Remember the past, Refuse what doesn’t serve us, and Reclaim our freedom and joy.
As a first generation Ethiopian American, there were so many elements to this book that I related to. I highlighted so much because there were so many parts that just spoke to me. This book has me thinking about what I've learned in all aspects of my life: as a black woman in America, as a project manager, and as a person; how do I want to show up?, what do I want to refuse? and what do I want to reclaim?
One of things Aida said in our conversation is that experiencing joy is our birthright and I couldn’t agree more.
Aida Mariam Davis’ brilliant book Kindred Creation invites us to reflect on the historical and ongoing legacy of settler colonialism, illuminating how the extraction of the land and the enslavement of people disrupted ancestral connections and relationships to self, nature, and community. Her book asks the question: how do we free ourselves from this legacy for this current moment but also for the future? Specifically, because her work is a "love letter to black futures,” it prompts the reader to ponder on the question of how do we cultivate Black joy, dignity, and freedom in a world and systems that attempts to constrict and suppress these very experiences and histories?
If you read Kindred Creation, you'll learn that part of the path toward freedom lies in knowing, reconstructing, and celebrating one's own ancestral culture and histories which she explores in the first part of the book. I especially loved AMD's telling of the history Ethiopian Queen Empress Taytu who helped defeat the Italian army because of her knowledge of the land and waterways--this story is a prime example of how women's lived experienced lead to liberatory acts of resistance.
The latter half of the book focuses on another major aspect of the journey--which is to engage in the process of world-building with kindred spirts and communities.
Building and creating spaces of self-freedom will not happen just by yourself. You need to find kindred communities and kindred spirits who are also engaging in the same quest for self-determination. This is where the feminist concept of radical relationality comes into play, the idea that the liberation of self can't ironically happen without engaging with the other, and with others and community in a reciprocal way, that is, in a manner where each already assumes and presupposes that there's a humanity there. It is a different kind of self vs. other dialectic. Find your people. And a key aspect of finding your people is that they see you--they see your humanity, dignity and gifts.
Overall, her book offers aplenty when it comes to intellectual and philosophical brilliance--referencing and engaging with the great poets, storytellers and thinkers from Toni Morrison to Toni Cade Bambara and Fanon. But I would be remiss not to mention that ADM's writing style, tone and voice is also full of emotional urgency, humor, and passion that I found myself moved to the last pages. The book satisfied my nerdy intellectual side but it also reminded me of my own soul searching and path as a first-generation American Latina who is also seeking to find kindred spirits in world that unfortunately, due to the current political and anti-immigrant landscape, has made it difficult for for Latino/x/e to find spaces for self-representation and visibility.
If you are a reader contemplating these very topics, you'll find some inspiration and solace from a writer who inspires us to continue to imagine hope, belonging and kinship... because that IS the future that will sustain us moving forward.
At the height of the slavocracy of the European settlers, when whites believed they has set up a permanent system of aggrandizement through stolen Indigenous American land and stolen African people, on the verdant plains of Haiti, enslaved Africans raised a conch shell to call to rise-refuse-resist. It seemed impossible to the violent logic of the time that Africans had the will, the discipline and the power to defeat the mighty army pf Napoleon and declare the first Black Republic. But they did. In the last 40 years we have been repeatedly told-It is the end of history, there is no alternative-the way things are is now eternal-white supremacy, capitalism, extreme wealth and extreme poverty are natural, inevitable and unchangeable. Like a call from a conch shell comes Aida Mariam Davis' Kindred Creation. First reminding the reader of the systems of exploitation from the outset of the development of the United States, she draws on the Royalty of African and African American writers, orators, revolutionaries and activists to allow us to see the logic and possibility of society organized a different way. A guide book for finding alternatives to DEI and assimilation, processes that validate the inevitability of the present social structure, designed to protect and advance people of European descent. There are other ways to organize society, drawing on the cultural depths of African and Indigenous Americans . We must rethink patterns and assumptions we find cultivated in the US. In so doing we can develop the alternative framework of this writing: Belonging, Dignity, Justice and Joy into a society where "our creations are motivated by a desire to become relatives and kin." Kinship not only among people who look like you, but including the land, the water, the trees who live partly in the soil and partly in the sky. There is much here to consider, think about, imagine, and plan with. Octavia Butler is quoted: "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns. Within the pages of Kindred Creations Aida Mariam Davis-Shine on!
Kindred Creation is so much more than a book—it’s a powerful reclamation and radical call toward liberation. As always, Aida doesn’t just speak about freedom—she embodies it. She invites us to bear witness to liberation in practice by sharing her own story and modeling what it means to move through the world more rooted and free through powerful storytelling.
Like everything Aida creates, Kindred Creation is far from traditional. It pushes boundaries, refuses binaries, and invites the reader to engage in the sacred work through ‘re-membering, refusing, and reclaiming’ - a tangible way to envision what’s possible when we center lived experience, confront oppressive systems, and reclaim what’s been taken from our communities.
Personally, this book lit a spark in my soul. As a biracial Asian American of Filipino and Indian descent, I found unexpected parallels in Aida’s centering of her Ethiopian ancestry. Her voice reminded me of parts of my own family’s story that I had tucked away or been taught to forget. Through her work, I felt permission to hold up the mirror and return to those memories with tenderness and power. This book helped me remember who I am—and who I’m still becoming.
It’s the kind of book that lingers long after the final page, inviting deep reflection and active transformation. This is the work!
This is one of the most powerful and thought-provoking books I have read in years.
Davis combines parable, poetry, and prose into something that feels both philosophical and deeply intimate. She frames the journey around three imperatives: remember, refuse, and reclaim. Each one landed with me in a personal way. As an Ethiopian-American, the call to remember resonated with my own efforts to stay connected to language, history, and traditions that can easily slip away in the diaspora. Her urging to refuse reminded me of the quiet ways I sometimes compromise to fit in more easily. Her vision to reclaim offered hope that joy and dignity are not distant ideals but birthrights we can embrace now.
Her writing offers a rare mix of clarity and lyricism. She is not only an incisive critic of the systems that distort our humanity but also a visionary who offers a glimpse of the worlds we might create in their place.
Davis is clear that this book is not written for settler consumption, and she is right. It reads less like a manual and more like a love letter to Black futures and an invitation to design better worlds on our own terms. I came away feeling both seen and challenged with a sense of responsibility to carry forward the ancestral traditions that shape me.
Kindred Creation is such a beautifully written book. The mix of poetry, stories, and alliteration makes it feel more like a piece of art than just a book. You can really tell how intentional the author is. Every idea feels carefully thought through.
One thing that really stood out to me was how she makes connections I've never considered before, like connecting the tradition of pouring out liquor for "the homies" to African libation ceremonies. That really stayed with me.
I also loved the three parables. Each one tells a powerful story and teaches something meaningful. Honestly, they could be their own children’s books. The whole book made me think, reflect, and feel more connected to the African way of life.
I read Kindred Creation when I was six months postpartum, in the thick of new motherhood. There’s something about that time when the world feels both tender and overwhelming that makes you crave grounding.
Kindred Creation is a masterclass in Africa & Black studies and the beauty of human connection. Aida Mariam Davis’s words read like poetry: lyrical, deliberate, and deeply moving! And every page is grounded in careful research and lived experience. I felt smarter reading it, expanded by every chapter. I didn’t just learn about her—I learned about the power of community, resilience, and storytelling. It’s a book that stays with you.
Aida's "Kindred Creation" is a masterful blend of her personal heritage, vulnerable moments of growth, and illustration of her SME expertise as a community organizer. Her storytelling challenges each of us to reignite and reimagine the roles we play in strengthening our communities. Through her rich narrative, Aida inspires readers to build generational wisdom, wealth, and opportunity. This book is a powerful call to action, urging us to embrace our roots and contribute meaningfully to the world around us.
Aida Mariam Davis breathes language into a movement that's lived in our ancestor's veins for generations. The historical education found in these pages is both necessary and the information needed to make you feel whole.
She offers us a non-binary way of reimaging our place in the world and our responsiblity to it. Her thoughtful words transend widely accepted modern slavery, and invite us to create a world filled with belonging, dignity, justice, and joy.
If you are looking for a thought-provoking read that educates and challenges you into higher being, it's a must read!
This given gift, weaved and sewn, newborn and known, sang to m(w)e. Re-covering. Swaddling, nascent, enduring, encompassing, souls.
And as the soul (w)rests, the soul dreams, and as the soul dreams, the world breaths, and as the world breaths, the worldbuilders believe. As we, us, nature, planet, all,. believe,. defunct doctrine fail and fall. This work delivers., the answer., the call.,
TLDR: a DUB (w) - the call is coming from inside the house.
Kindred Creation felt like a powerful affirmation of the path I’m walking. Aida’s insights didn’t just resonate—they deepened my understanding and gave language to things I was already beginning to practice and feel. The book offered a mirror, reflecting back the rhythms and values I’ve been weaving into my life, while also widening my perspective on them. It’s both grounding and expansive—equal parts validation and provocation.
It feels like it continues to be a time for gathering, pathfinding and contemplation, a phase that was perhaps triggered by the Black Lives Matter (#BLM) protests, accelerated by the pandemic, and that’s being exacerbated by the tumbling, bewildering world we seem to live in now. This entry into this space of way-making by Aida Mariam Davis is directed particularly towards Africans and Black people. It’s a book that’s thinking deeply about lineage and legacy: It describes itself as “a call and response to dream and design better worlds rooted in African lifeways” and as “a path to Black freedom, a love letter to Black futures, and a blueprint to intergenerational Black joy and dignity”; importantly and centrally, "all (and always) on Black terms.”
This call to Blackness through design and design thinking lays out a formal thesis’s work of philosophical groundwork. *Kindred Creation* exposes all of the ways settler colonialism has acted violently against African and Indigenous ways of being and lifeways—in attempts to define and erase these cultures—and how Indigenous people and Africans in particular (on the Continent and in the Diaspora) can design new worlds for themselves in three parts: Re-member: Contexts And Characteristics Of Colonialism (Land, Language, Lifestyle, Labor); Refuse: Unsettle the Settler; and Reclaim: Return To Right Relationship.
What’s special about Aida Mariam Davis in particular is her positionality as an Ethiopian American: in *Kindred Creation*, she brings both perspectives to bear. *Kindred Creation* is not so much a primer or manual as Davis’s own profound meditation on these themes and her sharing of her thoughtful perspective; it should be read as such. The book enlarges on a particular theme for me: utopian thinking, and African and Black futurisms.
Recommended for theorists of Black lives, culture, and design, Black creatives, and everyone who thinks deeply about Black futures.
Read with: - The Afrofuturist Evolution - Ytasha L Womack - Decolonizing Design - Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall - The Black Utopians - Aaron Robertson
Thank you to North Atlantic Books and NetGalley for DRC access.
I am not the intended audience for this book, and with that I can only offer my experience reading it versus feedback. Reading this felt like sitting with Aida Davis and learning about her worldmaking and work to directly confront stale tropes and lead with decolonization of spaces and ideas.