This book argues that the basic component of any society's social
security and sustainability is cultural capital and its ability to fully
recognise diversity in knowledge production and advancement. However,
with regard to African societies, since the dawn of racial slavery and
colonialism, cultural capital - indigenous knowledge in particular - has
iniquitously and acrimoniously suffered marginalisation and pejorative
ragtags. Increasingly since the 1990s, cultural capital informed by
African knowledge systems has taken central stage in discussions of
sustainability and development. This is not unrelated with the
recognition by America and Europe in particular of the central role that
cultural capital could and should assume in the logic of development and
sustainability at a global level. Unfortunately, action has often failed
to match words with regard to the situation in Africa. The current book
seeks to make a difference by exploring the role that African cultural
capital could and should assume to guarantee development and
sustainability on the continent and globally. It argues that lofty
pan-African ideals of collective self-reliance, self-sustaining
development and economic growth would come to naught unless determined
and decisive steps are taken towards full recognition of indigenous
cultural capital on the continent.
