The epistemic politics of ‘academography’: navigating competing representations of Africa’s university futures

David Mills

doi:10.1080/14767724.2020.1814701

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the epistemic politics at work in radically contrasting academic representations of African university futures. Euro-American policy entrepreneurs and research funders call for major investments in Africa’s scientific research training capacity to strengthen the continent’s integration into a global knowledge system. Meanwhile, African social scientists and humanities scholars critique the epistemological hegemony of ‘Western’ models of the academy, and call for the decolonisation of African universities. This paper sets out a three-step approach to dealing with the politicisation of ‘academography’ (Thorkelson 2016) in this decolonial moment. The first step is to acknowledge how epistemic power relations shape all analytical moves. The second is to recognise that ‘generative antagonisms’ (Burawoy 2004) are inherent to disciplinary knowledge production. The third is to develop an ethnographic sensitivity to everyday academic practice within these institutional worlds and epistemic cultures. Together these moves offer space for dialogue between different visions of African higher education.

Highlights

‘Africa needs another million PhD scientists to develop homegrown solutions’ read the headline to a widely syndicated 2018 blog-piece by the South African scientist and statistician Alan Christoffels (2018)
Even scholars of political economy are accused of being trapped within a Western epistemology and replaying the ‘Eurocentrism of Marx’ (Ndolovu-Gatsheni 2013, 8)
The paper argues for a three-step approach to dealing with the politicization of academic writing about the university, or what Thorkelson calls ‘academography’ (Thorkelson 2016)

Summary

Introduction

‘Africa needs another million PhD scientists to develop homegrown solutions’ read the headline to a widely syndicated 2018 blog-piece by the South African scientist and statistician Alan Christoffels (2018). The alternative is clear: to rethink the university, its purpose and form This paper analyses these contrasting discourses, the scholarly and institutional interests that inform these visions, and the lack of dialogue between these positions. The third is to practice a form of methodological relativism, developing an ethnographic understanding of the materialities and institutional logics of African university worlds This approach is exemplified by three ethnographic case-studies of African research cultures, each of which illustrate the porous nature of the contemporary African ‘pluriversity’ (Santos 2010, Mbembe 2016) and the daily challenges of academic life amidst scarcity. Put together, this combination of academic self-critique, sociological theory and ethnographic attentiveness can serve as an effective academographic toolkit. The paper draws on feminist insights to make the case for multiple possible future visions, each offering partial solutions and responses to the different demands that African societies are likely to place on academic research and university-based knowledge (Santos 2018)

Another million PhDs?

Decolonising the African University?

The inevitability of scholasticism

Recognising the diversity of African academic practice

Findings

Conclusion