African design philosophy and the limits of the pluriverse

Philosophy of design remains a predominantly Western disciplinary formation, shaped by Euro-American institutions, concepts, and standards of legitimacy. In African contexts, making and design practice are systematically misrecognised: classified as culture, reduced to craft, or framed as informal adaptation when they in fact constitute infrastructural intelligence and social organisation. This commentary argues that African design philosophy is constitutive of design thought rather than regional in scope. It argues further that the pluriverse, while valuable, has circulated without displacing epistemic authority, a condition named here pluriversal mimicry. Two propositions follow: African philosophy must shape the terms of design philosophy itself, rather than diversify a field defined elsewhere; and design is better understood as the organisation of life than as the production of objects. The commentary proposes criteria for evaluating claims of pluriversality, alongside a philosophy grounded in relationality, repair, temporality, and collective life.