This thesis explores and advances alternative and meaningful green energy-enabled futures in rural African indigenous communities. Focusing on two Namibian communities, Donkerbos and Otjisa, it highlights the adverse energy access challenge in these communities - and Africa as a whole. The continent has the lowest levels of energy access globally, with over half of its predominately rural population lacking reliable energy. This situation has led to a transition towards greener and more inclusive energy systems. However, many interventions, policies and projects driving this transition tend to be deterministic, imposing external models of progress and visions of green energy-enabled futures that fail to align with local contexts.

As a response, this study embraces an Afrocentric orientation, and community-based co-design and futuring methodologies to prompt locally-grounded and-inspired green energy-enabled use cases, innovations and possibilities. Through a series of iterative research cycles, the study contextualises design futuring, encouraging community reflection, imagination and collective envisioning of alternative futures. This approach situates communities as agents, determining and designing alternative and meaningful futures based on their values, practices, and temporal perspectives.

Comprising seven articles, the thesis contributes to the field of design futuring in rural African Indigenous communities in three main ways: First, it provides methodological and temporal perspectives for applying design futuring in Indigenous settings. Second, it introduces ‘Community-based Futuring’, an alternative and situated design futuring approach. Third, it develops three associated design futuring avenues – Chameleon Innovation, /Xoa-!khaia, and Indigenous Future making – to enable rural Indigenous communities to explore alternative future trajectories and possibilities. Ultimately, this thesis promotes agency and self-determination, ensuring that communities shape their own future trajectories as they transition to green energy.