African Futures in the Making (Future Rural Africa)

What lies ahead for rural Africa, given a rapidly increasing population, climate change, poverty, inequality and projections of an increasing vulnerability to natural hazards and food shortages?


Bringing together scholars in ecology, agriculture, economics, human geography and cultural anthropology, from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK, this book focusses on social-ecological transformation and future-making in rural Africa, especially in areas of rapid land-use change following the establishment of development corridors, conservation areas, and large-scale infrastructure projects. In Africa, discussions on the way forward are particularly conflict-ridden because people do not agree about desirable goals, because the gap between winners and losers seems to be bigger than elsewhere, and because the struggle for desirable futures is embedded in a problematic history of foreign domination and exploitation.

Focussing on eastern and southern Africa, topics examined range from the history of conservation initiatives and wildlife protection to visions of green development, from the gender implications of extreme climate events on pastoral economies to the use of information and communication technologies on farms and mobile money in geographically remote territories, from large-scale energy infrastructure projects and growth corridors to local ways of managing risk. The volume opens with reflections on African utopic registers of the future and conceptual decolonization in African futurity.

CONTRIBUTORS: Martin Ajei, Michael Bollig, Maxmillian Chuhila, Peter Dannenberg, Clemens Greiner, Prince K. Guma, Carolin Hulke, Linus Kalvelage, Eric Kioko, Britta Klagge, Uroš Kovač, Astrid Matejcek, Richard Mbunda, Kennedy Mkutu, Detlef Müller-Mahn, Frankline Ndi, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Rupert Neuhöfer, Anne Oketch, Dennis Ong'ech, Maggie Opondo, Gilbert Ouma, Javier Revilla Diez, Julian Rochlitz, Dorothea Schulz, Ian Scoones, Tahira Shariff Mohamed, Masresha Taye, Gideon Tups, Hauke-Peter Vehrs, Julia Verne

Published in association with the Collaborative Research Centre FUTURE RURAL AFRICA, funded by the German Research Council (DFG).

This book is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the collaborative research center "Future Rural Africa", funding code TRR 228/3.

DETLEF MÜLLER-MAHN is Professor of Development Geography, University of Bonn. He served as the spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC-TRR 228) "Future Rural Africa" 2018-2021. His research focuses on the political ecology of land use change and rural development in East Africa and the Middle East. Eric Kioko).

MICHAEL BOLLIG is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne.

Carolin Hulke is a research associate at the University of Cologne, Institute of Geography and associate to the multi-disciplinary research project "Future Rural Africa" (CRC-TRR228/1). She is conducting her PhD research on southern African agricultural regional value chains, livelihood strategies and rural development.

Clemens Greiner is the academic coordinator of the Global South Studies Center (GSSC). His current research focuses on rural change, political ecology, translocality, and (energy) infrastructures in Kenya. His regional specialization is on Eastern and Southern Africa.

DOROTHEA E. SCHULZ is Professor & Department Chair, Department of Social & Cultural Anthropology, University of Münster, Germany.