African Indigenous Knowledge, Leadership, and Environmental Care

A Case Study of the Traditional Sénoufo People of Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

This paper presents the traditional Sénoufo knowledge of the environment and their stewardship methods, based on their ancestral beliefs in Côte d’Ivoire. Only in the last decade have we seen an increase in interest in African Indigenous Knowledge. However, access to African knowledge, worldviews, and approaches within Western forms of scholarship remains very limited, especially when considering environmental care. The current generation of Africans educated in schools following Western standards often lacks awareness of African Indigenous Knowledge and their environmental concerns. This lack of knowledge is particularly evident among the Sénoufo people of Côte d’Ivoire. An analysis will be conducted using the limited scholarship available, focusing on insights from studies of the traditional Sénoufo’s stewardship practices. Additionally, this article will offer insights into how traditional Sénoufo knowledge informs leadership principles in environmental caretaking. This paper will demonstrate how the Sénoufo people possess extensive knowledge of their environment and implement a bottom-up leadership system, in contrast to the top-down model commonly adopted by many organizations led by Western-educated leaders. Indigenous leadership is often underestimated because current leaders in Africa with Western education tend to follow the top-down approach, unlike traditional indigenous leaders. Future research should explore leadership through the lens of the bottom-up model, an area that remains underexplored and unfamiliar to many leaders globally. This approach is rooted in Sénoufo tradition and still practiced in villages in northern Côte d’Ivoire. Building on these findings can further develop leadership research both domestically and globally.