African Futures Design: Speculative Design Practices and the Imagining of Desirable Nigerian Futures

Speculative design, futures design, and design fiction methodologies have emerged as powerful tools for imagining and critically interrogating possible futures, yet their theoretical and practical development has been overwhelmingly centred on Euro-American cultural imaginaries. This doctoral study develops African Futures Design as an original theoretical and methodological contribution, grounded in the speculative design capacities of Nigerian cultural traditions and applied through a programme of practice-based research engaging participants across six geopolitical zones in imagining desirable Nigerian futures through designed artefacts, scenarios, and narratives. Drawing on speculative design theory, Afrofuturism scholarship, Nigerian oral tradition, and futures studies, the research employs a practice-based methodology combining archival analysis of indigenous speculative traditions in Nigerian storytelling, visual art, and ceremonial design; collaborative futures design workshops with one hundred and eighty-six participants drawn from diverse Nigerian communities and professional backgrounds; and studio-based development of a body of speculative design work comprising forty-two artefacts and fifteen scenario narratives. The African Futures Design framework developed from this process identifies five distinctive principles differentiating it from Euro-American speculative design: ancestral futurity, communal scenario authorship, material cosmological grounding, adaptive optimism, and anti-dystopian commitment. The speculative design body of work is presented and critiqued at an international exhibition and symposium. Contributions advance speculative design theory, Afrofuturism scholarship, and design methodology in postcolonial contexts. Keywords: speculative design, African futures, Afrofuturism, Nigeria, futures studies.