YALIW is the scholarly database arm of Timbuktu Research and Design. It is not a separate entity. YALIW is built, maintained, and hosted as part of our broader digital ecosystem, linked directly from the main Timbuktu Research and Design site.
Where Timbuktu Research and Design focuses on African-led design concepts, heritage management, and textile research, YALIW extends that mission into academic publishing — curating, preserving, and amplifying peer-reviewed scholarship by African and Caribbean scholars.
Timbuktu Research and Design was established to unite African-led design concepts and methodologies with heritage management and textile research. Our initiative is designed to foster creativity and inform innovation at both national and continental levels.
Operating within a dynamic and promising landscape, Timbuktu Research and Design is dedicated to positively impacting the textile industry across Africa. With research and education as the cornerstone of our practice, we aspire to develop methods that reclaim dominion over our narratives and practices, thereby laying the foundation for self-determined futures.
By merging ancestral wisdom with contemporary innovation, we are building a new ecosystem for African textiles — one that cultivates economic sovereignty, celebrates cultural integrity, and outfits the future of the continent on its own terms.
YALIW is the scholarly expression of this same vision — applied to academic knowledge rather than textiles, but rooted in the same principles of sovereignty, integrity, and self-determination.
Curate — Select, organise, and showcase rigorous scholarship on its own terms.
Preserve — Every paper receives a DOI and is permanently archived.
Amplify — Make African and Caribbean scholarship visible and impactful worldwide.
YALIW comes from the Mandinka word jaliw — the plural of jali, meaning historians, storytellers, and knowledge keepers. You may know the French colonial term "griot." YALIW reclaims the original Mandinka word, just as Timbuktu Research and Design reclaims African narratives and practices.
YALIW is not a separate company, organisation, or legal entity. It is a digital initiative hosted under the Timbuktu Research and Design domain, linked directly from the main site. All content, infrastructure, and operations are managed by Timbuktu Research and Design.
For the main Timbuktu Research and Design site, visit: timbuktu-group.africa
YALIW is growing. We are seeking authors, peer reviewers, and institutional partners.
Scholars who set the standard, not follow it, submit to YALIW.