African Futures in the Making, edited by Detlef Müller-Mahn (Project C03 “Green Futures”) and Michael Bollig (Project A04 “Future Conservation”) is the latest volume of the Future Rural Africa book series, jointly published by the Collaborative Research Centre Future Rural Africa and Boydell and Brewer.
The book series examines how climate change, globalization, and new resource management practices are transforming rural land use and societies in sub-Saharan Africa. African Futures in the Making explores how different people and institutions in rural Africa actively imagine and shape possible futures amid social, economic, and environmental change. Using diverse case studies—from digital farming and mobile money to conservation and religion—it examines how visions of the future are created, contested, and put into practice in contemporary Africa. The open-access volume features 11 articles in total. Contributions by Future Rural Africa researchers are listed below.
African Futures in the Making
Introduction: Future-Making and Social-Ecological Transformation in Rural Africa
By Detlef Müller-Mahn and Michael Bollig
‘In Technology we Trust’: Digital Visions and their Implications for Agricultural Futures in Eastern Africa
By Astrid Matejcek, Rupert Neuhöfer, Julian Rochlitz, and Julia Verne (Project C04 “Smart Futures”)
Green Futures and National Planning: Rhetoric and Reality in Rural East Africa
By Eic M. Kioko, Detlef Müller-Mahn, and Maxmillian J. Chuhila (Project C03 “Green Futures”)
The Growth-Corridor Vision and its Realities – Regional Economic Impacts in Namibia and Tanzania
By Javier Revilla Diez, Peter Dannenberg, Carolin Hulke, Linus Kalvelage, Gideon Tups and Richard Mbunda (Project C01 “Future in Chains”)
The Making of an Energy Resource Periphery? Scalar Politics, Frontier Dynamics, and Future-Making in Northern Kenya
By Clemens Greiner, Britta Klagge, Kennedy Mkutu and Frankline Ndi (Project C02 “Energy Futures”)
Africa, The Conservation Continent? Future-Making and the Globalization of Wildlife Protection
By Hauke-Peter Vehrs and Michael Bollig (Project A04 “Future Conservation”)
‘Joining the church’ as a Form of Future-making? Il Chamus Christians’ Futural Orientations in Baringo County, Northern Kenya
By Dorothea Schulz and Uroš Kovač (Project B04 “Projecting Futures”)
Epilogue: African Futures and the Way Forward
By Detlef Müller-Mahn and Michael Bollig
Reference
Müller-Mahn, D., Bollig, M. (eds.) 2026. African Futures in the Making. Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge. DOI
