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Detlef Müller-Mahn#Michael Bollig

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First published 2026

James Currey

ISBN 978 1 84701 422 1 (Hardback)

ISBN 978 1 84701 486 3 (ePUB)

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Cover image: Painting by Tanzanian artist Lyombo, in collaboration with German postdoctoral researcher Theo Aalders, depicting the creation of a hydroelectric power construction site in Tanzania. © Collaborative Research Centre TRR 228 ‘Future Rural Africa: Future-making and social-ecological transformation’. This painting was produced during a workshop with local residents who were invited to visualise their ideas about the future. It highlights the contrast between the fenced-off machinery park and the bustling, impromptu village for aspiring labourers next to it. While young men line up in front of a Chinese engineer in the hope of finding a job, women in the village provide basic food and care work. The painting illustrates the link between ‘future-making’ and often precarious labour, and how infrastructure projects create both new connections and barriers

Cross references refer to page numbers in the print edition

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African Futures in the Making

Stable URL:https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-311370

Open Access license

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.

Author

Detlef Müller-Mahn#Michael Bollig

PublisherJames Currey

Print publication date Jan, 2026

Print ISBN 9781847014221

EISBN 9781847014863

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African Futures in the Making

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