Where we hope further research will be heading
Two contributions to this volume focus on a decolonization of future-making agendas. They reflect upon the extent to which the concept of future-making is tightly linked to imaginaries of temporality typical of colonial regimes. To plan a future, to manage the future and to attempt to approximate probable futures is ostensibly linked to the governmentality of extended bureaucratic apparatuses. Bearing the quest for decolonization in mind, is it then possible to specify African temporalities and free the concept ‘future’ from its Western epistemology? Both contributions make clear that it is an arduous task to recover local temporal concepts and make them operative for planning. Both contributions leave little doubt that there is still a lot of ground to cover and explore when linking the quest for decolonization and emancipation to the topic of future-making. Possibly, decolonization is also only one lens to emancipate local concepts of temporality from hegemonic visions. Islamic concepts of time and knowledge furthered by the Sudan’s Islamic revolution of the 1990s, have marginalized other, including other Islamic, versions. Similar disparities have been observed in southern Ethiopia, where expansive Amharic concepts of time marginalize other indigenous versions of it. These observations urge us to look closer at hegemonic visions of temporality and future-making and how they empty other visions. Of course, marginalized communities and subalterns do not simply consent to such hegemony; rather, they generally resist and offer alternative imaginaries and/or sabotage dominant ones. Possibly, there is not only conflict but also a search for compromise and hybrid forms of future-making. We should not forget that most people try to harmonize different imaginaries of the future as well as different practices of future-making on a very personal level.
What other perspectives on future-making will further research have to consider? Admittedly, the selection of topics and authors represented in the collection of articles has some biases, which should not be concealed. First, the case studies prioritize examples from rural areas. This is because the focus of the collection was initially on rural areas, simply because the initiative for this publication came from the collaborative research centre ‘Future Rural Africa’. The majority of contributors to the book are members or affiliated partners of this large research group, which is shown in the thematic and regional focus of the empirical case studies. We do of course see the rural not merely in juxtaposition to the urban, but as an integral part of the continent. Whatever concerns political decision-making, financial flows, social transformation, or economic dynamics has to be understood from an integrative perspective with regard to urban-rural relations. Even so, we believe that an explicit focus on rural futures is a reasonable approach, because the processes and practices of future-making presented in most of the articles become visible and empirically approachable in rural contexts. This becomes particularly evident in the case of agricultural intensification, in the establishment of large-scale conservation areas, in the introduction of new technologies in agricultural production, or in rangeland development. It is in rural settings where Western and local temporalities, and deduced probabilities and possibilities, clash.
However, we concede that coming studies on future-making will zoom in on rural-urban as well as local-national-international imaginaries and practices of future-making. In a project that has just been kicked off, one of the authors looks at the emergence and rapid spread of medium-scale farms across the African continent. Such farms are often started by successful migrants who have made a good income in urban surroundings and endeavour to invest capital in farms in their home areas – often with the very explicit aim of safeguarding their personal future well-being after retirement, but occasionally also with the idea of ‘developing’ and ‘modernizing’ rural communities and landscapes. Further, rural (as much as urban) youth aspire to globalized versions of future-making which are transmitted via smartphones. Imaginaries of different hyper-modernities, counter-modernities and even de-globalized modernities are streamed and broadcasted around the globe. It is here that new projects on future-making would find fertile ground.
Secondly, the perspectives on African futures presented in this book reflect the disciplinary affiliations of its authors, who mostly work in human geography (including economic geography), social anthropology, and political science, together with two philosophers. Representatives of some other social sciences are sadly missing, such as from history, agronomy, and psychology. The disciplinary background explains the selection of topics of the papers, and also the blind spots, for example the history of development plans and past imaginations, the limits and opportunities of agricultural production, or the expected impact of climate change on the local ecology. Some important topics deserved more attention, but they are not presently covered by the authors. Foremost among these is the topic of the demography of African societies, which will be central to future scenarios. Population numbers in Africa are still rising steeply, while the demographic transition in almost all other parts of the world has advanced to stable or even shrinking conditions. Further, there are enabling and disenabling factors of mobility. Future-making often means movement across borders and ever more often across continental divides. With progressive emphasis on national borders and hindrances to mobility, future-making will include multiple different perspectives.
Thirdly, the case studies focus primarily on Eastern and Southern Africa, because these are the study areas of the Collaborative Research Centre Future Rural Africa. Many of the conditions presented in the chapters herein may be comparable across the continent, as may more general reflections presented in the philosophical contributions. If spatial perspectives were widened to include central, western and north-eastern Africa, the subject of violence would necessarily come into play. None of the contributions include the effects of widespread violence on future-making. Violence cuts future-making short. Refugees will rarely have the luxury of dealing with future-making with regard to a long-term perspective, but are rather engaged in securing a future for themselves and their families for the next few weeks. Further research on future-making may more explicitly engage in systematic comparisons of cases across the continent.
Research on future-making is essential for democratization and emancipation. Given the manifold challenges that societies worldwide are facing from global environmental threats and the possibility of the fragmentation of a global system due to ‘Make My Country Great Again’ campaigns, from various forms of fundamentalism and extremism and from politics of isolation, research on future imaginaries and future-making practices is even more necessary in the search for well-being and participatory democratic forms of participation.