Towards advancing African management scholarship

Purpose This paper aims to address the main arguments put forward in Grietjie Verhoef’s article and contribute to a wider debate among management scholars on the role of indigenous theories. It challenges the view of African management as illusory and points to the rising support for indigenous theories as indicative of the weakening of the unquestioned dominance of universal theories. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes a conceptual and critically reflective approach, underpinned by a 360-degree evaluation of pertinent literature and theoretical arguments. Findings This paper reveals an underlying symmetry and interconnectedness, anchored on a shared communal ethos, among Afrocentric management concepts, specifically Ubuntu, Ekpe and Igbo apprenticeship systems. This symmetry points to an underlying indigenous management theory that begs to be further conceptualised, evidenced and advanced. Research limitations/implications This paper affirms Verhoef’s demand for Ubuntu, Ekpe, Igbo apprenticeship system to be more rigorously developed and theoretically coherent and urges scholars to intensify effort towards advancing the conceptual and empirical foundations of African management. Echoing Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless counsel, this paper calls on critics of African management to join the effort to bring about the change they wish to see in African management theorising. Social implications This paper disavows the alleged effort to impose a single “African management” model or perpetuate the “colonial/indigenous” binary divide but equally cautions against an effort to veto scholarly striving for a common identity, to learn from history or not embrace collective amnesia. As examples from the USA and Europe show, diversity, even heterogeneity, needs not to preclude the forging of a commonly shared identity complemented with appropriate sub-identities. Originality/value This paper links the African management-centred themes addressed by Verhoef to the wider debate among management scholars about lessening the dominance of universal theories and allowing space for context-resonant indigenous theories. It calls on African management scholars to invest the premium and intensified effort towards building a more robust and coherent body of indigenous theory that will have the capacity and efficacy to inform, explain and advance organisational practice and outcomes across Africa.

Colonial Continuum

The Fort York National Historic Site was chosen as the site of research to examine how tourist attractions are constructed through the use of certain images and narratives, which reflect existing socio-political power dynamics through the processes of selecting and excluding what is represented. Research into media representations of Fort York was first conducted on the websites of Fort York and the City of Toronto on May 15th and May 16th, 2018. Field observations were subsequently conducted at the Fort York National Historic Site on May 20th, 2018, from 3–5 p.m.; May 30th, 2018, from 2–4 p.m.; and June 2nd, 2018, from 3–5 p.m. The analysis illustrates how the social, cultural, and historical constructions of Fort York render Canada and Canadians as conceptually White spaces and bodies, thus reflecting how the Canadian settler state continues to normalize the erasure of Indigenous peoples, communities, identities, and cultures within the contemporary Canadian landscape. Application of queer Indigenous theories then helps to concep­tualize how multiple uninterrupted strands of settler colonialism intersect to form a cohesive but variegated colonial continuum, or the tangible inertia of settler colonialism that self-perpetuates colonial heteronormativity. Queer Indigenous theories are thus argued to provide the framework through which colonized peoples can collectively dismantle the colonial continuum.

Consorting with Stone

This essay places Marie de France’s lai “Yonec” (ca. 1150–1200) and the anonymous Middle English romance King Horn (ca. 1250–1300) in conversation with critical Indigenous theories of relational, land-based sovereignty and resurgence. At first, “Yonec” and King Horn appear to reinscribe a Western form of sovereignty based on exclusive territorial control. Both works offer alternative models of sovereignty and self-determination, however, in their depictions of cooperative, lithic alliance between stone and female consorts. Adopting the term lithic sovereignty to describe the works’ relation-based sovereign imaginaries, this essay first follows the King Horn narrator’s depiction of Godhild’s hermetic retreat into stone when Saracens conquer her husband’s realm. Then it turns to the nameless lady of “Yonec” and her implausible escape from her jealous husband’s tower, facilitated by the very stone that had seemed to entrap her. Drawing on critical Indigenous studies, legal studies, and ecomaterialism, this essay concludes that both King Horn and “Yonec” offer a medieval British imaginary of lithic relational sovereignty that runs counter to teleological, naturalizing narratives of Euro-Western origins.

Theories of Indigenous and non-Indigenous wellbeing in Australian health policies

Summary Governments in Australia and internationally show growing interest in wellbeing as a policy goal; however, such interests raise questions about the theories or definitions of wellbeing they will apply. Choices about how wellbeing is defined for policy purposes are likely to delimit the strategies applied. Wholly individualized conceptualizations of wellbeing may lead to policy focused narrowly on ‘improving’ individuals rather than on creating favourable social conditions. Also, Indigenous theories of wellbeing may have much to offer policy for public wellbeing, but little research has examined whether this potential is considered in contemporary health policy. We report on research examining Indigenous and non-Indigenous theories of wellbeing in a representative sample of current Australian health policy documents. We examine what theories or definitions of wellbeing are present, whether policies recognize social determinants of health; if ‘lifestyle drift’ is present; how Indigenous and non-Indigenous theories of wellbeing are positioned; and whether policies propose strategies consistent with their definitions of wellbeing. We discuss implications of current approaches for effective policy to promote Indigenous and non-Indigenous wellbeing.

Critical creative pedagogies: a decolonial and indigenous approach using visual arts and creative writing

The following paper argues for a critical creative paedagogy as a means of meaningfully engaging with Indigenous and decolonial philosophies. We showcase our critical frameworks and pathways for teaching a decolonial and Indigenous university course where philosophy and arts meet to engage with complex colonial, racial and epistemological questions. We first frame our theoretical and philosophical stance within critical postcolonial, Indigenous and decolonial studies. We then describe an epistemological critique within western philosophical discourse that will gesture towards a decolonial pathway to arts and discuss our creative teaching approach grounded in decolonial and Indigenous theories. Lastly, we reach to a critical and decolonial space where ‘southern’ philosophies can be ‘heard’ in their fullest complexity. We contend that creative writing and visual arts grounded in critical decolonial and Indigenous theories provide a space in which a decolonised knowledge seems possible.

Continually RedefiningProtagonismo: The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political Change, 1976–2015

Activists in the Peruvian working children’s movement have been theorizing about “children’s protagonismo” for nearly 40 years. Changing political contexts and the infusion of discourses from other social movements have produced three major sets of meanings for this concept, each reflecting different dynamics in Peruvian social movement history. First, the concept, infused with ideas from liberation theology and Latin American engagements with Marxism, was primarily understood in terms of class struggle and collective organization. Second, because of opportunities and threats in the 1980s and 1990s, it became more closely associated with children’s rights frameworks. Third, since the early 2000s, the movement’s approach to protagonismo has drawn on indigenous theories of interdependence and relationality to challenge the individualism of neoliberal capitalism and governmentality. In holding these diverse ideological commitments together, the concept has allowed the movement of working children to communicate across multiple discursive communities.Los activistas del movimiento de los niños trabajadores peruanos han teorizado sobre el “protagonismo infantil” durante casi 40 años. Los cambios en el contexto político y la influencia de discursos pertenecientes a otros movimientos sociales han generado tres grandes conjuntos de significado alrededor de este concepto, cada uno de los cuales reflejando distintas dinámicas en la historia del movimiento social peruano. Primero, el concepto se entendió en términos de clase imbuidos por ideas de la teología de la liberación, así como actitudes latinoamericanas de compromiso con el marxismo y la organización colectiva. Posteriormente, a raíz de las oportunidades y amenazas de las décadas de 1980 y 90, se relacionó de manera más estrecha con el marco de los derechos del niño. Desde principios de la década del 2000, el enfoque del protagonismo se ha ligado a teorías indígenas de la interdependencia y la relacionalidad para desafiar el individualismo del capitalismo neoliberal y la gobernabilidad. Al unir tal diversidad de compromisos ideológicos, el concepto ha permitido que el movimiento de los niños trabajadores tenga voz en múltiples comunidades discursivas.