ABSTRACT

Higher education has recently been recognized as a key driver for societal growth in the Global South and capacity building of African universities is now widely included in donor policies. The question is; how do capacity building projects affect African universities, researchers and students? Universities and their scientific knowledges are often seen to have universal qualities; therefore, capacity building may appear straight forward.

Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa contests such universalistic notions. Inspired by ideas about the ‘geography of scientific knowledge’ it explores what role specific places and relationships have in knowledge production, and analyses how cultural experiences are included and excluded in teaching and research. Thus, the different chapters show how what constitutes legitimate scientific knowledge is negotiated and contested. In doing so, the chapters draw on discussions about the hegemony of Western thought in education and knowledge production. The authors’ own experiences with higher education capacity building and knowledge production are discussed and used to contribute to the reflexive turn and rise of auto-ethnography.

This book is a valuable resource for researchers and postgraduate students in education, development studies, African studies and human geography, as well as anthropology and history.

part |66 pages

Capacity building of African universities

chapter 4|25 pages

Collaborative education across continents

Lessons from a partnership on sustainable resource management education

chapter 5|22 pages

The Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia

A new direction in the internationalisation of African higher education?

part |64 pages

Researching and teaching climate change in Africa

chapter 8|17 pages

Power of knowledge under changing conditions

Lessons from a Sahelian village under climate change

chapter 7|23 pages

Producing scientific knowledge in Africa today

Auto-ethnographic insights from a climate change researcher

chapter 8|22 pages

Negotiating scientific knowledge about climate change

Enhancing research capacity through PhD students

part |67 pages

Creating and using academic knowledge in Africa

chapter 9|22 pages

My knowledge, your knowledge, whose knowledge is it?

Reflections from a researcher's journey through universities in North and South

chapter 10|23 pages

Creating an African university

Struggling for a transformational curriculum in apartheid South Africa

chapter 11|20 pages

African universities and rights in African polities and communities

Africanising universal knowledge?