This volume of the African Journal of Inclusive Societies brings together a rigorous, multi-disciplinary examination of the politics of belonging in contemporary Africa, interrogating how inclusion and exclusion are actively produced, contested, and sustained. Moving beyond normative commitments to inclusion embedded in policy and development rhetoric, the contributions critically analyse the “implementation gap” between citizen participation and real influence, drawing on nine empirically grounded case studies from Southern and Eastern Africa. Collectively, the articles shift the debate from inclusion as policy intent to inclusion as lived practice, foregrounding power, institutional responsiveness, and the everyday mechanisms that shape who belongs, whose voices count, and who remains marginalised.