LEGACY & SOCIETY

Across Africa, a name can carry far more than identity. It can preserve family history, mark the circumstances of a birth, express faith, honour an ancestor or carry a parent's hopes for a child's future. Naming traditions differ enormously across the continent. Among the Akan of Ghana, for example, traditional names can reflect the day of the week on which a child was born. In parts of Yoruba culture, names often carry meanings connected to family circumstances, spirituality

For more than a century, some of Africa's most important cultural objects have been displayed thousands of miles from the societies that created them. Museums across Europe and North America hold sculptures, royal objects, manuscripts, masks and ceremonial works acquired during colonial rule. Some were purchased or exchanged, while others were removed through military expeditions, looting or circumstances in which the balance of power was profoundly unequal. Today, a growing

Across the African diaspora, the idea of “going home” carries enormous emotional weight. For descendants of people displaced through slavery, colonialism or later migration, Africa can represent ancestry, identity and a connection interrupted across generations. In recent years, improved travel links, social media and deliberate outreach from African countries have made that connection increasingly tangible. Ghana's Year of Return brought global attention to the idea in 2019,

Across Africa, markets have always been more than places to buy and sell. They are centres of commerce, information, community and social power — and for generations, women have been at their heart. From the market women of Ghana and Nigeria to traders in Togo, Benin, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, women have built businesses that supported households, financed children's education and connected rural producers with rapidly growing cities. Long before conversatio