Questioning the localization and circulation of knowledge in Africa

Abstract

The article deals with the dynamics of the localisation and circulation of African knowledge as knowledge production, allowing us to understand that these two dynamics are not reduced to processes and interactions between local competencies. On the contrary, it draws on the interest of African anthropologists and international debates to describe organised processes such as networks of production and transmission of knowledge and skills, providing an interpretation of these interactions in terms of learning and development. Africa has historically experienced unequal relations with its “local knowledge” and the latent danger of their disappearance. This is why the text focuses on the recognition of these periods and the importance of a new “local” development policy. The expression “local knowledge” has made it possible to acquire a vision of African knowledge qualified as indigenous knowledge, which is excluded from the scientific field and from the Western world. In turn, in order to give it a political character, “localisation” has the effect of identifying the skills and knowledge linked to a place. Circulation focuses on the transmission, transfer or exchange, as a means of emphasizing the diversity of the processes, networks and filters through which knowledge “passes”. Knowledge is necessarily selected, appropriated, sometimes reformulated, before being promoted, recognized and instrumentalized according to procedures, commitments and practices that need to be better understood. Circulation is understood as the articulation between material and intellectual activities producing this transformation of a socio-cultural world. The author concludes that the dynamics of localisation and circulation are two processes that can hardly function separately; both dynamics are organised by oriented and collaborative networks.