This article offers an introduction to the special section about the theme of ‘African ecologies and indigenous knowledges’. It explores the interest of scholars, policy makers and activists in indigenous knowledges as a resource for addressing global challenges, particularly the challenges in relation to the environment and climate change in contemporary Africa. Reviewing current literature and discourse on the subject, this Introduction foregrounds the considerable political, epistemological and methodological significance of indigenous knowledges, especially in the light of ongoing debates about decolonisation, and it highlights their relevance for understanding African ecologies. It further introduces the three articles included in this special section, embedding them in broader fields of scholarship. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: the value and politics of indigenous knowledges’, edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba.)

This article explores the intersection between landscape, worldview, African spiritualities and human-environment relations among the Sengwer ethnic community in Kenya. Documenting a range of indigenous knowledge expressions, the article examines narratives of landscape within the broader spectrum of environmental discourses and identity claims. It shows that among the Sengwer, cosmology and lifeworld are deeply intertwined, which recognises a multiplicity of sentient beings, only some of which are perceptible. The central figure bridging the seen and unseen worlds is the thunder deity Iilat, who shapes the moral code for the community. The Sengwer landscape not only provides them with food, medicine, water, honey, and shelter but also embodies their identity, history, memory, cultural and religious significance. Overall, the Sengwer identity is conceptualised as based on a relational knowledge that is a socially constructed process centring around the spiritual attachment to the landscape. This article therefore argues that the consideration of indigenous religious and spiritual knowledge sheds critical theoretical and practical light on African ecologies and human-environment relations. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: the value and politics of indigenous knowledges’ edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba .)