Africa Journal of Management

Finding Afrotopia in Times of Technological Transformation – Toward Pluriversal African Future-Making

Afrotopia: A Topic for Management and Organization Studies

Felwine Sarr’s (2020) seminal work, Afrotopia, is an aspirational call for African societies to chart their own path to modernization. It invites thinking and imagining African futures that reflect the continent’s vibrant and diverse histories, traditions, and cultures. Rather than mimicking models of development that have largely been defined by Western institutions and intellectual traditions, Afrotopia is a manifesto that encourages the creation of ideas and solutions that fit Africa’s unique contexts. This manifesto does not imply a return to a pre-colonial past. Rather, it evolves from the Third Space in which many Africans are situated (Bhabha, 2012; Kalua, 2009). This Third Space is not a simple blending of traditions, but a generative site where indigenous and external influences are actively negotiated and transformed into something distinctly African.

The invitation to find Afrotopia aligns well with two current research trends in management and organization studies (MOS): efforts to better study and theorize future-making processes (Wickert, 2025) and the aim to establish pluriversal perspectives in MOS (Mielly et al., 2024). Research on future-making seeks to conceptualize organizational practices, such as those used in design thinking workshops or agile methods, that can influence the future of an organization and its environment (Comi & Whyte, 2018; Wenzel et al., 2025). It’s a conceptual term that aims to aggregate those critical practices in the present that ultimately shape the future. Such research on future-making often adopts an emancipatory approach, exploring how “better” futures can be achieved by paving the way for a utopia through a collective exploration of all concerned voices (Comi et al., 2025; Gümüsay & Reinecke, 2024; Quatrone et al., 2026). 

Sarr’s call to achieve an Afrotopia also aligns with MOS scholarship, which aims to expand pluriversal perspectives and develop insights beyond Western worldviews (Banerjee, 2022; Wickert et al., 2024) and to draw greater attention to managerial and organizational practices well-suited to African contexts (Barnard, 2020). This call seeks to address the often-observed Western bias in MOS research (Nagaraj & Yao, 2025; Schimmelpfennig et al., 2025) and to introduce more indigenous viewpoints (Salmon et al., 2023) and a broader plurality of epistemic perspectives to address today’s major societal challenges (Auerbach Jahajeeah et al., 2025). Calling for pluriversal perspectives is thus an attempt to identify alternative pathways for successful management and organization in contexts such as those in African countries, societies, communities, and organizations. 

Therefore, while Sarr’s work can be rooted in philosophy, the invitation to find Afrotopia is also relevant to MOS scholars. Thinking about Afrotopia prompts an exploration of what organizations, their members, and stakeholders can do today to shape African futures that more closely approximate a true utopia in the eyes of African communities and inhabitants (Harmann et al., 2020).

 

Africa’s Technological Transformation: Chances and Challenges

Research into finding Afrotopia becomes even more important given the continent's rapid technological transformation, a key driver of Africa's future (Swartz et al., 2023). While early discussions (1990s-2010s) about Africa's digital economy mainly centered on the digital divide stemming from limited infrastructure, low internet usage, and technological lag relative to other regions (Mosco, 2005; Avgerou, 2010), the narrative shifted significantly in the 2010s. It moved from a deficit perspective to an emphasis on Africa’s potential as a digital innovator (Friederici, 2016; Ndemo & Weiss, 2017) and highlighted the complexities and particularities of technological transformation in African contexts (Oborn et al., 2019; Slavova & Karanasios, 2018). After 2020, the narrative has become more complex and critical due to increased awareness of technological vulnerabilities, rising geopolitical tensions, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence (World Bank, 2024; Afolabi, 2023). 

In the pursuit of an Afrotopia, recent technological transformations can be both opportunities and threats. On the one hand, the development of mobile banking solutions in Africa demonstrates how the continent can take a pioneering global role in developing digital tools (Willige, 2023) while addressing the needs of African citizens (Mbiti & Weil, 2015), illustrating what a digital African utopia could mean. On the other hand, the digitalization of organizational processes might entail the risk of recolonizing Africa when Western values and assumptions that are primarily designed in Europe and North America (Birhane, 2020; Young, 2019) are uncritically embedded in technological solutions (Kwet, 2019; Mano, 2022; Ugar, 2023).  Such initiatives advanced by big tech companies and advertised by the World Bank may shape what a digital future looks like, but these new technical solutions might be impractical, inefficient, or even harmful when applied in certain African settings, thereby fostering a future that departs from the idea of an African utopia. 

Therefore, if the aim is to find an Afrotopia in times of technological transformation, we, as MOS scholars, are called to explore the conditions and factors under which digital and technological change can support (or constrain) alternative African modernities that genuinely serve the continent’s people.

 

Special Issue: Consolidating Knowledge on a Timely Topic

To gain insights and build knowledge on this pertinent topic, we are curating a special issue in the Africa Journal of Management (AJOM) that builds on the conversation about how and why technological transformation influences African futures, and whether these initiatives can approach the idea of an Afrotopia. We welcome conceptual and empirical work using any methodology that aligns with AJOM’s aims and scope: publishing original, rigorous, scholarly empirical and theoretical research papers that demonstrate a clear understanding of the management literature and draw on Africa's local indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and current realities. We therefore also warmly welcome methodological approaches rooted in African and indigenous epistemological traditions, including participatory, narrative, and community-based methods. The focus is on uncovering the conditions and factors that seem promising for approaching the idea of an Afrotopia and/or those that hold it back. Potential topics and questions to be addressed could include, but are not limited to, the areas below: 

 

Conceptualizing alternative African modernities:

• What might Afrotopia look like in an era of technological transformation, given Africa’s diverse histories, epistemologies, and socio-cultural contexts?
• How can pluriversal approaches to technological transformation and future-making be inspired by African philosophies, traditions, and organizing practices, such as Ubuntu (South Africa), Sankofa (Akan, Ghana), the Gada system (Oromo, Ethiopia), the Kgotla (Botswana), nit nitay Garabam philosophy (Wolof, Senegal), Harambee (Kenya), or the Nwa Boi system (Nigeria) (Kiggundu, 2024)?
• What are the reasons why technological transformation may create a utopia for some countries, communities, and people in Africa, and maybe the opposite for others?

 

Defining threats to African societies, fostering an African dystopia:

• How do platform economies and data extraction practices by foreign technology companies reproduce colonial economic relationships in African markets, and what organizational responses and alternatives have emerged?
• How might AI-driven transformations — including cybersecurity risks, dehumanization, labor displacement, surveillance, and misinformation — undermine or pervert African modernities that aim at genuinely serving the continent’s people?

 

Theorizing promising cases informing Afrotopia:

• Which empirical cases and organizational experiments support the emergence of an Afrotopia amid technological transformation, and what conditions enabled or constrained their emergence?
• How are digital ecosystems in African countries (Adner, 2017; Hanelt et al., 2020) established, governed, and sustained to support alternative African futures?
• What are the governance structures that support or hinder the establishment of successful digital ecosystems?

 

Identifying technological conditions required for a technologically enabled Africa:

• How can African organizations and societies overcome persistent challenges related to digital divides, digital literacy, and unequal technological affordances?
• How can African organizations pursue technological leapfrogging while remaining attentive to local contexts, indigenous knowledge systems, and societal needs?

 

Recognizing geopolitical circumstances shaping Africa’s technologization:

• How does an increasingly multipolar world reshape technological transformation across African governments, firms, and civil society organizations?
• How does Africa’s centrality in the extraction of rare earth minerals and critical resources reposition the continent within global technological value chains, and with what implications for local communities and futures?
• How do African states and firms navigate competing technological dependencies from rival global powers, and what does strategic technological autonomy look like in an era of intensifying geopolitical rivalry?

 

Understanding future-making in African contexts:

• Given that many African traditions embrace relational and non-linear conceptions of time (Kim et al., 2019), what do practices of future-making look like in technologically transforming African organizations?
• How do African histories, philosophies, and traditions shape imaginaries of pluriversal and technologically mediated African futures?

 

Uncovering the role of Africa’s young population in innovating alternative futures:

• How do young Africans engage in practices of future-making through digital entrepreneurship, creative industries, artistic expression, and technological innovation?
• How do Gen Z digital and social media movements reshape political participation, activism, and inclusive forms of governance across African societies?
• What institutional, regulatory, and financial conditions enable or constrain youth-led technological innovation and digital entrepreneurship in African contexts?

Submission: Our Philosophy and Important Dates

In line with AJOM’s philosophy of promoting pluriversal collaboration (Zoogah et al., 2025), the development of this special issue will be guided by an accompanying mentoring process. As an international guest editorial board, we aim to foster an environment that encourages intellectual exchange and mutual learning among African and non-African scholars. Additionally, we plan to organize paper development workshops at international conferences and online meetings, improving the ability of both early-career and senior scholars to steadily enhance their academic work toward publication in this special issue. We also plan to hold bilateral discussions between the editorial board and the authors of the shortlisted manuscripts to support their revision process, involving targeted experts on the manuscripts’ topics. The expected timeline and information are listed below:

 

Submission deadline: November 1, 2027

Special issue events*:

• Online information session: September 10, 2026 (2 PM Central Africa Time)

> The guest editors will provide information, explaining the aim and scope of the special issue during an online kick-off session.

> You can register for the event via this link: https://unibe-ch.zoom.us/meeting/register/MJ4k85u8SQ-s_mbLzjY2oA

• Pre-submission online paper development workshop: March 2027 (exact date, time, and submission deadline TBA)

> Interested authors are invited to submit a short paper (3,000 words, including references and supplementary materials) to participate in the workshop. During breakout sessions with the special issue editors, participants will discuss their papers and alignment with the special issue's aims and scope.

> Short papers should outline the core ideas of the proposed manuscript by addressing: (i) the theoretical framework; (ii) the research gap, puzzle, or problematization motivating the study; (iii) the data and methods of analysis (for empirical papers); (iv) preliminary findings; and (v) the paper’s expected contributions.

•  Foreseen pre- and post-submission paper development workshops at conferences:

> July 30 – August 3, 2027: Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Vienna, Austria.

> January 2028: Biennial Conference of the Africa Academy of Management.

* Attendance at these events is not compulsory for submitting to the Special Issue.

 

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