African Futures in the Making (Future Rural Africa) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847014224 ISBN 13: 9781847014221

Publisher: James Currey, 2026

Synopsis

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. 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.

About this title

About the Authors

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: James Currey
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847014224
• ISBN 13: 9781847014221
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 318
• Editor: Müller-Mahn Prof Dr Detlef, Bollig Prof Dr Michael