No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
RETHINKING KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION in Africa
Abstract
Jean and John Comaroff enthusiastically claim that Africa constitutes a rich site ‘of new knowledges and ways of knowing-and-being … that have the capacity to inform and transform theory in the north, to subvert its universalisms in order to rewrite them in a different, less provincial register’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2011). What role, then, can the African university – which, as described by Jeremiah Arowosegbe, is in a lamentable state – play in creating and generalizing these ‘new knowledges’?
... Some scholars who raised concerns about the imposition of Eurocentric knowledge production from the field of humanities and social sciences attributed the problem of academic scholarship in Africa to a constructed epistemology imposed during colonialism (Mamdani, 1996(Mamdani, , 1998(Mamdani, , 2008(Mamdani, , 2011Ake, 1979;Diop, 1976;Amin, 2002;Arowosegbe, 2014Arowosegbe, , 2016Adebanwi, 2016;Oyewumi, 2022). These works focused intensely on actualising an allembracing African renaissance, reclaiming the humanity of Africans by decolonising knowledge and the strategies of knowledge production that promote endogenous knowledge as a recovery project, and projecting the African voice as the most authentic expression of the African condition. ...
... The writer would only have the option of generalising the problem as a continent based or taking the option of abandoning the study. The faulty assessment criteria raise an essential question about the success of decolonising knowledge production in Africa as canvassed in humanities and social sciences (Mamdani, 2008(Mamdani, , 2011Arowosegbe, 2014Arowosegbe, , 2016Adebanwi, 2016;Oyewumi, 2022). ...
This paper argues against conventional approaches that analyze the knowledge economy from a Euro-centric perspective. The debate on knowledge production in Africa raises serious questions among academics, as academic institutions have a compelling need to innovate in terms of technologies and human behaviors that are relevant to global competition. Emerging from the clutches of colonialism, postcolonial African scholars in the humanities and social sciences have accused European Enlightenment thinkers of universalizing knowledge expressed in the spirit of domination and using it as a reference to classify societies as developed, modern or underdeveloped and archaic. The problem lies not so much in identifying Euro-centric knowledge production, but in finding an appropriate theoretical model that can reorient knowledge production towards a knowledge economy of Africa. Caught in the trap of knowledge poverty and economic development, African scholars educated in the emerging Eurocentric development paradigm rationalize African failures to catch up on the basis of internal contradictions in accordance with Enlightenment thinkers. Unfortunately, Africa seems to be descending on an escalator that is going up, which pulls the demand for an academic program that can place Africa in the competitiveness of the global market down. Some questions emerge: Are African academic programs demand-driven? What kind of research methodology underlies research in Africa? How have African universities structured their evaluation criteria? Our point is to argue that the African historiographic explanation that has been detached from any positive contribution to humanity and scientific innovations is only part of the explanation. The substance lies in methodology and theory. The identification of an appropriate research methodology and theoretical model will not only domesticate existing technology, but will stimulate indigenous science and technology for competitiveness in the global marketplace. It is this gap that we want to fill in this article. Résumé : Ce papier s'inscrit ouvertement contre les approches conventionnelles qui analysent l'économie de la connaissance à partir d'une vision euro-centrique. Le débat sur la production-Akoko Ondo state (Nigeria) 54 de connaissances en Afrique suscite de sérieuses questions parmi les universitaires, car les institutions universitaires ont un besoin impérieux d'innover en matière de technologies et de comportements humains adaptés à la compétition mondiale. Émergeant des griffes du colonialisme, les chercheurs africains postcoloniaux en sciences humaines et sociales ont accusé les penseurs européens des Lumières d'universaliser les connaissances exprimées dans un esprit de domination et de les utiliser comme référence pour classer les sociétés comme développées, modernes ou bien sous-développées et archaïques. Le problème ne réside pas tant dans l'identification de la production de connaissances euro centrique, que dans la recherche d'un modèle théorique approprié qui puisse réorienter la production de connaissances vers une économie de la connaissance de l'Afrique. Pris au piège de la pauvreté des connaissances et du développement économique, des universitaires africains instruits dans le paradigme du développement euro centrique émergeant, rationalisent les échecs africains pour rattraper leur retard sur la base des contradictions internes conformément aux penseurs des Lumières. Malheureusement, l'Afrique semble descendre sur un escalator qui monte, ce qui tire la demande d'un programme universitaire qui peut placer l'Afrique dans la compétitivité du marché mondial, vers le bas. Certaines questions émergent : les programmes académiques africains sont-ils axés sur la demande ? Quel type de méthodologie de recherche sous-tend la recherche en Afrique ? Comment les universités africaines ont-elles structuré leurs critères d'évaluation ? Notre point est d'avancer l'explication historiographique africaine qui a été détachée de toute contribution positive à l'humanité et aux innovations scientifiques n'est qu'une partie de l'explication. La substance réside dans la méthodologie et la théorie. L'identification d'une méthodologie de recherche appropriée et d'un modèle théorique appropriés , permettront de non seulement domestiquer la technologie existante, mais permettront de stimuler l'autochtonie de la science et technologie pour la compétitivité sur le marché mondial. C'est cette lacune que nous voulons combler dans cet article.
... In fact, because Zimbabwean knowledge production was fundamentally disruptive, insufficient and wholly inappropriate for African requirements, it has turned out to be epistemic fascism. One should consider Zimbabwe's organised and formal knowledge creation to be in danger of being marginalised or emasculated (Adebanwi 2016) because the dominance of Western thought and marginalisation of African thought has deformed the intellectual spaces. The study demonstrated that research must be decolonised, funds must be made available to drive research and the envisaged Centres for African Studies and their activities must be reimagined to align with African perspectives. ...
Despite common knowledge that higher education in Zimbabwe has erased indigenous knowledge production and is grappling with the legacy of colonialism, like much of Africa, very few studies, if any, have reflected on and discussed how lecturers can dismantle the coloniality of knowledge production through decolonial resilience. This conceptual article uses the case of Zimbabwe and deploys the decolonial lens to interrogate how higher education lecturers can decolonise knowledge production and navigate the trajectory of injustices and systematic inequalities to validate African thought systems. Using documents and extant literature from the public domain, the article responds to two questions that underpin this study: how have colonial legacies shaped knowledge production in higher education in Zimbabwe, and how can lecturers unsettle the dominant narratives on the production of knowledge through decolonial resilience? Despite existing evidence, findings replicate that Western dominance has superseded indigenous knowledge production and cultural Chimbunde, Moreeng and Mufanechiya 2 practices, and lecturers have not firmly renounced colonial adversity to validate the African knowledge production system. The study argues for decentring African perspectives and experiences in knowledge production to prioritise cultural relevance and epistemic justice. Given these findings, the study recommends employing decolonial resilience to transform higher education and promote knowledge recovery. By exploring how higher education lecturers, as agents, can turn a new leaf in knowledge production, the study contributes to a broader conversation on the decolonisation of knowledge production in higher education in Zimbabwe and beyond.
... In addition, scholars from SSA countries tend to be located mostly at the "margin" of the global sustainability science network, having low-intensity connections with the core of the network (Elsevier 2015). This is possibly because African scholars are either parts of larger multiauthor teams led by researchers from developed countries, or they publish in relatively lower-impact journals that are not captured by the main research search engines (Adebanwi 2016). This suggests the need to both improve the high-impact output produced and/or coordinated by African scholars and engage in more creative collaborations with non-African researchers (including from developing countries outside SSA). ...
Mining is an integral component of many national economies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Even though mining can contribute substantially to local livelihoods and regional and national economic growth, it has also been linked to many negative sustainability impacts. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to ongoing discourses on mining sustainability in SSA, especially related to the societal impacts of mine decline and closure. Using the case of Kabwe town in Zambia, the chapter draws on resilience thinking to analyse the different stages of mining operations and outline the short- and long-term outcomes of mine closure on mine-dependent communities and identify possible policy actions and practical solutions to mitigate them. We employ the concept of the adaptive cycle, which is a central notion in resilience thinking. In particular we employ the adaptive cycle as an analytical frame for understanding the evolution of mining operations and categorizing changes that have occurred over time due to mine closure. Based on data from historical sources and in-depth interviews with various stakeholders and local residents, the chapter shows that the unexpected mine closure has had significant negative socio-economic outcomes for the mine-dependent community. Many of these negative outcomes were mediated by earlier failures to consider the eventuality of mine closure (and plan against its impacts) at the levels of the national government, local government and mining company. Based on these insights, the chapter demonstrates how resilience thinking can provide policy and practice recommendations to develop measures and interventions to mitigate the negative outcomes of mine closure.
... The asymmetric publication landscape partly reflects the differences between the working conditions of scholars based on the continent and those based elsewhere. While many African academics have adopted ingenious strategies for research and publication that rely on both external and local resources (Olukoju 2002), excellent research is sometimes consciously limited or appropriated by vested interests -including, at times, Government (Adebanwi 2016;Arowosegbe 2016;Ogen and Nolte 2016). Non-African researchers committed to empirical research also come under pressure from African politicians or businesses ( Cramer et al. 2015), but their institutions are far less likely than those of their African colleagues to be affected by such interventions. ...
Over the past two decades, Africa has returned to academic agendas outside of the continent. At the same time, the field of African Studies has come under increasing criticism for its marginalisation of African voices, interests, and agendas. This article explores how the complex transformations of the academy have contributed to a growing division of labour. Increasingly, African scholarship is associated with the production of empirical fact and socio-economic impact rather than theory, with ostensibly local rather than international publication, and with other forms of disadvantage that undermine respectful exchange and engagement. This discourages our engagement with Africa as a place of intellectual production in its own right. By arguing that scholars can and should make a difference to their field, both individually and collectively, the article suggests ways of understanding and engaging with these inequalities.
Knowledge production in Africa has fared poorly in an ecology of western-dominated bibliometrics or scientometrics. This chapter explores questions related to who disseminates knowledge about Africa and the implications on teaching, research and knowledge production on and about the continent. Scholarship about Africa has to explicitly take into consideration power dynamics that continue to reinforce the Global North–South divide in publishing about Africa. The study concludes by providing an alternative framework that incorporates African voices and perspectives and transforming knowledge production and narratives about Africa.
There is a great need for new practices to match evolving theories in decolonizing and democratizing the field of African history. This article is a report on a research practice undertaken in the Central Region of Ghana in which researchers worked with teachers to deliver a community-based history experience for high school teachers. The historians contributed lessons in methodology as well as an approach that valued the students as co-creators. Students selected their own research topics and produced original interpretations for their community. The evidence from this intervention suggests benefits for researchers, students, and community members. Although it required a great deal of preparation and learning on the part of the historians, this kind of practice may build community confidence in the researcher, foster valuable partnerships, produce more accurate information and interpretations, and nurture the development of future historians from local communities.
Special Issue on The Politics of Knowledge Production in Africa (With selected papers from the 15th CODESRIA General Assembly) Contents Academic (Im)mobility: Ecology of Ethnographic Research and Knowledge Production on Africans in China Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo..........................................................................1 What Should Globalization Mean for African Humanities and Why? Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi..........................................................................23 Sociology of Knowledge in the Era of Academic Dependency in Africa: Issues and Prospects Oludele Albert Ajani..................................................................................39 Situating African Indigenous Ideas within Conventional Learning as an Impetus for Knowledge Construction in Africa Babatunde Joshua Omotosho.................................................................53 Skills or Credentials? Comparing the Perspectives of Degree- and Non-degree-holding Ghanaian Graduates on the Value of Higher Education Nana Akua Anyidoho............................................................................67 Globalisation, Decoloniality and the Question of Knowledge Production in Africa: A Critical Discourse Olugbemiga Samuel Afolabi..............................................................93 Propos sur un Bandoeng épistémique: l’Afrique, le Sud Global et la production du savoir à l’ère de la mondialisation Germain Ngoie Tshibambe................................................................111
Since the emergence of China in the geopolitical and economic spaces of Africa, academics have followed Chinese and African people moving in both directions and conducted on-the-ground, cross-border ethnographies. However, academics are not equally mobile. This autoethnography analyses the intersections of ethnography, mobility and knowledge production on 'Africans in China' through a critical exploration of the contextual issues shaping the unequal participation of Africa-based researchers in the study of Africa(ns) in a non-African setting. Based on my experiences before, during and after migration to Guangzhou city, I demonstrate that 'being there,' fetishised as ideal-type anthropology, conceals privilege and racial and power dynamics that constrain the practice of cross-border ethnography in the global South.
The sustainability challenges that sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces tend to be multidimensional and span multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite the inherent difficulty in solving them, such sustainability challenges also offer opportunities for achieving progress on multiple SDGs. This concluding chapter summarises the main characteristics of the different sustainability challenges covered in the two edited volumes. We identify three common underlying themes between chapters, namely, (a) the emergent trade-offs between energy, agriculture, environment and the economy; (b) the low resilience and adaptive capacity to environmental and socioeconomic change; and (c) the constraints and opportunities for designing and implementing solutions to multidimensional sustainability challenges. It is argued that the emerging field of sustainability science is well positioned to lead the research agenda for both understanding and solving the most pervasive sustainability challenges in the continent. In order to achieve this, there is a need to (a) increase the output and visibility of African scholars and facilitate creative collaborations with researchers outside SSA, (b) invest in the development of state-of-the-art infrastructure for research and education, (c) create comprehensive educational curricula offering theoretical and practical tools to tackle sustainability challenges and (d) integrate more meaningfully African voices and perspectives in sustainability research and education. Arguably, the development of new research funding mechanisms, by Africans and for Africans, can usher a new wave of research that can truly address the prevailing sustainability challenges in the continent.
This paper argues that national human resource development (NHRD) practices, policy imperatives and challenges in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are linked to colonial experiences and coloniality. In doing this, the essay provides a brief overview of the intersections between postcolonialism and NHRD theory and practice, arguing that postcolonial insights can help overcome the ahistorical nature that characterizes much NHRD theorizing and also its reification. By demonstrating how current challenges to education and skills development in SSA are linked to colonial heritage and coloniality, the paper seeks to stimulate HRD theorists and practitioners to think differently and work beyond dominant neoliberal constructs and taken-for-granted assumptions about NHRD in postcolonial contexts. The paper also argues for the decolonization of NHRD and proposes some ideas about how knowledge about NHRD theory and practices might be made global and inclusive, thereby contributing to a tradition of paradigmatic critique in HRD theorizing.
Four years after the end of apartheid, the administrators of the University of Cape Town (UCT) suspended Mahmood Mamdani, then chair of the Centre of African Studies, from his teaching obligations because they deemed his course – 'Problematizing Africa' – too theoretically difficult for fresh stu-dents. The ensuing showdown between Mamdani and the university admin-istration culminated in a spirited public debate which is often framed as a disagreement over how to best to 'transform' the historically segregated university to achieve racial integration. Less commented upon, however, is the fact that this debate coincided with UCT's efforts to brand itself as a 'World Class African University,' attract greater funding from foreign insti-tutions, privatise its campus services, and adopt National Qualifications Framework (NQF) standards. In other words, UCT – like many post-apart-heid universities – was busy remaking itself into a 'global' university. Taken in this context, Mamdani's argument for the importance of 'teaching Africa in an African university' takes on a new resonance. This article re-reads the 1998 curriculum debates as also a struggle for academic autonomy within a neoliberal university. Doing so offers the opportunity to think about the political strategies of pedagogy, while providing students and faculty a com-pelling model for resisting the neo-liberalisation of higher education within their own particular institutions.