Ancient African Futures: Systemic Constellations Practice a Decolonial Poetics (Palgrave Studies in Decolonisation and Grassroots Black Organic Intellectualism) 

by Stuart Taylor

Ancient African Futures presents a creative and critically engaged exploration of the history and evolving forms of systemic constellations practice (SCP) through a decolonial lens, foregrounding the profound influence of Zulu epistemology on its origins.

The volume begins with an autoethnographic reflection on the author’s African diasporan and European identity, examining how this dual heritage shapes their position within the SCP profession. It then introduces SCP as a distinct modality within Western psychotherapy, widely attributed to Anton Hellinger, a German national who served as a Jesuit missionary priest in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s. The author contends that both Hellinger and this colonial context exemplify broader European imperial dynamics. The book interrogates this historical–contemporary relationship in dialogue with more-than-Western Indigenous epistemologies, calling for a pluriversal reckoning that acknowledges European colonial histories while uplifting Indigenous forms of cultural resistance.

After examining the asymmetrical exchange between Africana and Western cultures, the volume turns to a “speculative manifesto.” This manifesto offers concrete proposals for future SCP curriculum design, faculty representation, and professional training structures. It advocates for recalibration—recentering perspectives beyond whiteness and fostering an SCP field that is genuinely accessible to, and representative of, diverse global communities. It emphasizes honoring the historical, cultural, colonial, postcolonial, and political realities of these communities, as well as their contemporary experiences of migration, settlement, and resistance to Western neocolonialism.

Ultimately, the book argues for an empathetic, celebratory, and Black / Global Majority Heritage–inclusive model of systemic constellations practice.