There are many Indigenous knowledge initiatives taking place in different parts of Africa and beyond. In this chapter we include stories of some of these projects. We hope to add stories of further projects in future … perhaps your project will be featured one day!
African Peacemaking Database
The African Peacemaking Database is a collection of knowledge intended to catalogue and nourish, for the very first time, Indigenous practices of positive peace and reconciliation throughout the African continent. Please browse through their website: https://africanpeacemaking.org/
Supporting future generations of Indigenous researchers
Changu Batisani in Botswana is involved in a fellowship program seeking to support the next generation of Indigenous researchers and to close the distance between communities and universities.
Support for the next generation of Indigenous researchers: Changu Batisani
Returning learning to life and community – the THRIVE Uganda Initiative
The THRIVE Uganda Initiative is creating Hubs Without Walls in rural Uganda which builds on the work of Professor Dani Wadada Nabudere and his vision of Afrikology, a framework that recognizes communities not as passive recipients of aid, products, or externally designed solutions, but as living systems of knowledge, agency, innovation, and dignity.
As Caleb Wakhungu eloquently describes:
For centuries, Africa did not teach inside buildings alone. Learning happened under the mutuba tree, in gardens, workshops, marketplaces, around fireplaces, at water points, and through apprenticeship, storytelling, craft, farming, healing, music, and collective life. Knowledge was alive. Practical. Intergenerational. Connected to solving real problems.
Then we inherited a model of education built around walls, timetables, exams, and standardization. While this system produced clerks and administrators for colonial and postcolonial economies, it often failed to nurture problem solvers, creators, local entrepreneurs, regenerative farmers, and community leaders rooted in their realities. Today, many young people leave school disconnected from opportunity, disconnected from community knowledge, and disconnected from the urgent challenges surrounding them.
Yet the problems we face—food insecurity, unemployment, climate adaptation, energy poverty, social fragmentation, and public health—do not exist inside classrooms alone. We believe learning must return to life. A Hub Without Walls is any community space where learning, production, mentorship, and problem-solving come together.
- A garden becomes a climate-smart agriculture lab.
- A briquette enterprise becomes a classroom for circular economy and entrepreneurship.
- A tailoring workshop becomes a business incubator.
- A village square becomes a civic dialogue and digital literacy forum.
- A local artisan becomes a teacher.
- A community challenge becomes the curriculum.
This is not a rejection of formal education. It is a decentralization of knowledge. It is an invitation for academia, communities, artisans, informal workers, youth, elders, and institutions to work together so that knowledge flows both ways: from research to community, and from lived community experience back into research, policy, and innovation. We are especially inspired by emerging global conversations around community-driven ecosystems, regenerative development, experiential learning, and distributed innovation.
At its core, Hubs Without Walls seeks to address a historical injustice: the conditioning of African communities into becoming consumers of imported knowledge, services, and solutions rather than producers of knowledge, creators of value, and architects of their own futures. This is not merely an education project. It is a community infrastructure model for agency, livelihoods, learning, and systems transformation. In many ways, we are recovering something Africa has always known: that the community itself can be the campus.
This work builds on 20 years of work relating to ‘Raising our heads above the clouds: The use of narrative practices to motivate social and economic action’
Africa Social Work and Development Network
We close this chapter with a presentation Bagele gave to the Africa Social Work and Development Network otherwise known as Mtandao waKazi zaJamii naMaendeleo waAfrica. This network, founded by Rugare Mugumbate, is itself an African Indigenous knowledge initiative as it is dedicated to developing forms of African social work practice based on Ubuntu principles. It is also the home of the decolonisation calculator mentioned previously.
Here is an extract from Bagele’s presentation about the politics of knowledge production at the ASWDN’s annual Ubuntu lecture:
Part two: Postcolonial Indigenous Paradigm coming out of Africa (28:26 - 39:59)
Reflect
If you know of Indigenous knowledge initiatives in your part of the world that are inspiring you, please mention these below.
References and further reading
Chilisa, B. (2022, November 25). Decolonizing research and evaluation methodologies: Challenges and opportunities [Ubuntu Annual Lecture]. Ubuntu Annual Lecture Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHDD7ujJFyc
Denborough, D. (Ed.). (2010). Raising our heads above the clouds: The use of narrative practices to spark and sustain social and economic development – the work of Caleb Wakhungu and the Mt Elgon Self-Help Project. Dulwich Centre Foundation International.
Nabudere, D. W. (2012). Afrikology and transdisciplinarity: A restorative epistemology. Africa Institute of South Africa. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.22177833