Journal article
Weaving, Worlding and Reimagining Youth Futures in Africa
Journal of Futures Studies, Vol.30(4), pp.49-66
2026
Abstract
This paper explores how the ancestral practice of sisal weaving in Luo lands of Kenya can become a regenerative thread connecting to the lived realities of youth. Drawing on my work as a practitioner-researcher in eco-somatic and adaptive resilience fields, I position weaving as a feminist and Indigenous relational practice of hope, memory, care, and transformation. The plant and fiber offer a pathway for reconnecting youth with land, community, and ancestral knowledge systems. A mixed-method approach was employed, combining (1) embodied ethnographic engagement with weaving practices and (2) futures-oriented sense-making, where youth learn from elders and re-imagine their lives. I argue that craft-based pathways can activate embodied cognition, intergenerational intuition, self-as-nature connection, and collective improvisation offuture selves, thereby reducing disengagement and enhancing resilience. Weaving thus functions as cultural revitalization, ecological attunement, and anticipatory practice, reconnecting youth to identity, belonging, and futures imagination.
Details
- Title
- Weaving, Worlding and Reimagining Youth Futures in Africa
- Authors
- Samantha Willcocks (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- Journal of Futures Studies, Vol.30(4), pp.49-66
- Publisher
- Tamkang University, Graduate Institute of Futures Studies
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.6531/JFS.202606_30(4).0005
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991246279602621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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