Researching Creative Economies: global and local perspectives
9-11 July 2025, King’s College London
Conference Report
This year, our annual Africa-Europe Cluster of Research Excellence on Creative Economies PhD and early career researchers (ECRs) conference was held both online and in-person. Thanks to the support of seed funding from Circle.U submitted by King’s College London, Aarhus University and Humboldt University. The funding allowed us to extend the event over two days, with a day entirely online to enable researchers from across Africa and beyond to present their work, and a day hosted by King’s College in London for researchers able to present their work there. Both days were open to everyone, and audiences engaged with presenters in person and online.
The conference was opened on the first day by the CoRE co-leads (Prof. Comunian, Prof. Ikpe, Prof. Oni and Prof. Snowball), presenting the research aspiration of the Africa-Europe academic network and opportunities for PhD students and ECRs to publish in the network partner journal (African Journal of Creative Economy) and book series (Routledge Focus on Creative Economies in Africa).
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The first day took place entirely online and featured a diverse international set of speakers from across Africa and the globe.
The first session, chaired by Dr Anthony Tibaingana, engaged with two papers bringing a range of perspectives from Africa to the theme of “AI, algorithms and Digital Futures“. Speakers engaged with case studies from fashion (Effiom Inameti) and Afrobeats (Daniel Dadzie) to reflect on digital Afrofuturism, platform governance, and algorithmic mediation. Focusing on how African fashion entrepreneurs and Afrobeats artists navigate global digital platforms, they highlight how digital tools enable them to bypass traditional gatekeepers, reclaim cultural narratives, and access international markets. However, they also expose how recommendation algorithms and playlist curation often reinforce systemic inequalities based on language, geography, gender, and access to resources. Finally, both sectors face similar challenges in gaining equitable exposure and resisting digital marginalisation.
The second session, chaired by Professor Eka Ikpe, provided a detailed discussion on “Focus on Nollywood“. The two papers presented focused on AI and creative work (Godwin Simon) and the role of YouTube in preservation of Hollywood content and heritage (Longgul Makpring Dakwom). Taken together, these studies illustrate how Nollywood’s engagement with digital technologies—from AI-driven production processes to the use of YouTube as an informal archive—reveals both the opportunities and vulnerabilities that shape cultural production in Nigeria. Both cases highlight the tension between innovation and dependency on global digital platforms, underscoring how technological adoption in Nollywood is deeply entangled with broader questions of sustainability, ownership, and control in contemporary media industries.
The third session, chaired by Dr Ogake Mosomi, focused on “Africa fashion: trade, entrepreneurship, and cultures“. The papers presented focused on West-African fashion brands’
sustainability (Kenneth Appiah–Nimo) and South African jewellery value chains (Mawuko Gyan). Both studies highlight the growing significance of Africa’s creative industries in reshaping global value chains through sustainability, innovation, and regional integration. Together, these works illustrate how African SMEs and cultural producers are not only advancing sustainability and economic development but also challenging dominant global frameworks by fostering intra-African trade, strengthening cultural economies, and reimagining value chains from the Global South.
The fourth session focused on “Cultural intermediaries: between diplomacy and cultural opportunities” and was chaired by Professor Jen Snowball. The three papers highlight how across African creative economies, cultural intermediaries, festivals, and diasporic communities have played pivotal roles in shaping cultural production, resilience, and global exchange. Intermediaries (Fiona Drummond), such as galleries, festivals, and associations, can provide support and advocate for freelancers. Similarly, festivals in Nigeria (Adeola Ajala) have emerged as vital platforms of cultural diplomacy, fostering international collaboration, soft power, and economic growth. Complementing these dynamics, the case of the Indian diaspora on the Swahili coast (Komal Thakran) illustrates how migration, memory, and mobility have historically anchored cultural entrepreneurship and other practices in trade, architecture, print culture, and heritage. Together, these studies highlight the interconnectedness of cultural ecosystems, where intermediaries, festivals, and diasporic legacies sustain creative economies, reinforce identity, and open pathways for global cultural relations.
The final session, chaired by Dr Tamsyn Dent, focused on “African women and creative and cultural work: challenges and opportunities“ and included two papers. Both studies highlight how cultural norms shape women’s participation in the arts, underscoring the persistent barriers to gender equity across contexts. Research on women’s entrepreneurship in the performing arts reveals stark contrasts between Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe (Maryvian Owomugisha), where restrictive cultural norms in the former hinder women’s entrepreneurial growth, while supportive cultural systems in the latter encourage it. Similarly, in Ghana, indigenous drumming traditions have historically marginalised women (Madinatu Bello), with patriarchal practices limiting their access to training, leadership, and recognition, despite gradual shifts toward inclusivity in urban spaces. Together, these studies emphasise the need for policy interventions and cultural reform to dismantle entrenched barriers, promote gender inclusivity, and foster equitable opportunities.
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The second day of the conference, held at King’s College in London on July 11, 2025, consisted of three sessions and a keynote address by Prof. Polo Moji.
The first session, chaired by Professor Eka Ikpe, focuses on “Fashion, accessories and textile: local trajectories and global dynamics” and highlights its growing role in creative economies, sustainability, and global visibility. The first paper (Aissa Mboup) considers how in Senegal, fashion has flourished through post-pandemic innovation, political support, and cultural pride, positioning it as a model of sustainable entrepreneurship rooted in local traditions yet globally influential. Complementing this, pilot studies in Kenya and South Africa (by Lauren England) reveal both opportunities and challenges in linking small-scale designers with larger manufacturing infrastructure, emphasising the importance of industrial integration, sustainable practices, and supportive policy for SME growth. Together, these studies highlight how African fashion is reshaping cultural identity while paving the way for economic and industrial development.
The keynote by Professor Polo Moji, “African Literary Cities: Hubs, Maps and Urban Literary Ecologies“, was chaired by Professor Susanne Gehrmann. Professor Mojo explained how her project (co-led with Dr. Laura Nkula-Wenz) on African Literary Cities addresses the exclusion of African cities from global frameworks such as UNESCO’s Cities of Literature, challenging Eurocentric criteria that privilege formal infrastructures like libraries and publishing houses. Drawing on southern urbanism, the project reconceptualises literary urban studies by foregrounding African cities as dynamic sites of storytelling sustained through both formal and informal practices. Its research focuses on literary ecologies, hubs, and mapping, with particular attention to everyday forms such as street poetry, self-publishing, oral traditions, and online communities. Collaborations with festivals, publishers, and collectives, alongside public engagement and digital mapping, highlight the diversity of African literary life while resisting hierarchical distinctions between “high” and grassroots cultures. The project underscores that African literary cities are vibrant, complex, and globally significant. It calls for valuing informal practices, utilising mapping to transform absence into visibility, and adopting collaborative, transdisciplinary approaches that situate African cities at the centre of rethinking literary urbanity worldwide.
The second session, “Cultural consumption, commodification and development“, was chaired by Dr Teke Ngomba. The three studies collectively explore contemporary cultural production, consumption, and literary and artistic ecosystems in West Africa, highlighting the interplay between local contexts and global dynamics. In Sierra Leone (Kathrin Schmidt), theatre is examined through a political economy lens, showing how local production, aesthetics, and cultural policy intersect with global flows of finance, ideas, and international development agendas, emphasising the need for postcolonial perspectives in cultural policymaking. In Nigeria (Yossie Olaleye), the Aké Arts and Book Festival illustrates how strategic cultural programming can assert African literary sovereignty, creating spaces for African literature to be celebrated on local terms while negotiating the tensions of global networks, funding structures, and spatial relocation from Abeokuta to Lagos. Complementing these perspectives, household-level analyses of cultural consumption in Nigeria (Salvatore Di Novo) reveal how education, literacy, urban proximity, and internet access shape participation in cultural and recreational activities, including reading, media, and digital engagement. Together, these studies underscore the importance of local infrastructures, education, policy frameworks, and international relations in shaping creative economies, highlighting both challenges and opportunities for sustaining and promoting African cultural practices within broader globalised circuits.
The final session of the final day was chaired by Dr Lauren England and focused on “Digital and Creative Economy: historical and contemporary trends“. These studies highlight the ways African creative industries and digital platforms are reshaping cultural expression, identity, and economic agency. In Kenya (Edna Olondo), social media spaces such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube provide new opportunities for content creators who use gender performativity, cross-dressing, and digital personas as strategies for visibility, marketing, and self-expression, while navigating tensions between protection in virtual spaces, exposure to cyberbullying, and societal queer-phobia. Taking a broader look (Lilien Ezeugwu Chidera), Africa’s creative industries—spanning music, visual arts, film, fashion, and digital media—have evolved as sites of resilience and reinvention, shaped by historical disruptions but revitalised through emerging technologies like streaming, blockchain, and AI. Together, they illustrate how digital spaces both challenge ethnonationalist norms of gender and sexuality and offer pathways for reclaiming African cultural and economic agency, while also underscoring persistent vulnerabilities to exploitation, structural barriers, and contested legitimacy.
Overall, the conference offered some rich insights on the evolving nature of creative economies in Africa and their strengths and challenges. We are very grateful to the PhD students and early-career researchers who shared their research journeys with us and contributed to drawing future research agendas for our research network.
Prof. D. Roberta Comunian, King’s College London
Prof. Dr. Susanne Gehrmann, Humboldt University
Dr. Teke Ngomba, Aarhus University
You can download the Final programme here.
Watch our keynote speaker contribution via our YouTube channel or below.