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- Convenors:
-
Marieke van Winden (conference organiser)
(African Studies Centre Leiden)
Hassan Ndzovu (Moi University)
Britta Frede (University of Bayreuth)
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- Stream:
- D: Cases of regional and disciplinary specifics
- Start time:
- 22 January, 2021 at
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
- Session slots:
- 2
Long Abstract:
Learning is inevitable a relational process, therefore learning events are multiple and diverse. In our panel we want to highlight and analyse such multiple and relational processes of learning in Africa as well as their global connectedness. It contributes to an understanding of the many roles that learning plays in the making of subjectivities, life-stages and gendered bodies, and the ways that these are framed through the unequal distribution of educational opportunities. We invite papers from different disciplines that seek to analyse how learning itself is relationally constituted by — and at least partly co-constitutes — institutions, worldviews, communications, infrastructures, and transnational and transcontinental connections. Our understanding of learning goes beyond research approaches that limit their focus to formal educational settings such as schools or universities. Rather, we will address learning in a wider sense, encompassing all of the ways and processes in which knowledge and skills are transmitted, acquired and (re-)produced, regardless of institutional borders. An understanding of learning in Africa and elsewhere as a relational process will allow us to highlight aspects of multiplicity and diversity within learning events. Further, analysis of entanglements, mutual coexistence, conditions of emergence, and the multiple ways in which learning processes combine in peoples’ lives, will enable us to get a sense of the manifold interrelations within the highly heterogeneous African educational landscape. In particular, we want to stress the need for studying learners as embedded in their specific environments, who in the same time are as well producers of these environments through their networks of relations.
[initiated by the learning section of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence: reconfiguring African Studies, University of Bayreuth, with African partners i.e.Moi University Kenya]
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses how farmer-centred multi-stakeholder partnerships in Ghana can contribute to learning including smallholder farmer knowledge in response to persistent challenges related to poverty, food insecurity, unsustainable farming, and climate change.
Paper long abstract:
In response to persistent challenges related to poverty, food insecurity, unsustainable farming, and climate change, knowledge co-creation in multi-stakeholder platforms receives growing attention. This paper discusses farmer centered learning platforms: an approach towards peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange with smallholder cocoa and oil palm farmers in Ghana as well as practitioners and researchers, organised around specific themes at district level. The paper asks how and under what conditions farmer-centered learning platforms provide safe spaces for smallholders to voice their concerns, bring in their knowledge and innovation capacity, and learn from the interactions.
A farmer-centered and relational approach to learning is embedded in inclusive development theory, which foregrounds marginalized people, sectors and countries in social, political and economic processes for increased human well-being, social and environmental sustainability, and empowerment. It considers agricultural learning processes in value-chain contexts as being key to building trans-formative capacities of intended beneficiaries. This approach differs from conventional extension services and one-way learning processes that focus primarily on externally set goals to improve agricultural productivity and uptake of technologies developed by 'experts'. Instead, a farmer centered approach considers learning as being potentially inclusive when (i) knowledge exchange effectively aligns with farmers' varied livelihood orientations, knowledge, experiences, capabilities and innovation capacity, (ii) they achieve more equitable outcomes and self-determination for farmers; and (iii) take sustainability and landscape concerns into account.
Findings obtained from action research, observations, interviews and focus group discussions, revealed that, first, providing a safe space for farmers to share knowledge with peers and other actors makes them feel included and empowered. Second, farmers adopted 'innovations-from-below' shared by their peers during platform meetings, like the use of organic manure and new collaboration arrangement for food crop production. Third, organizing the platforms at district level enhanced the engagement of actors working closely with farmers. Fourth, farmers developed a common understanding of landscape changes and consequences for production and livelihoods. Fifth, several local actors took ownership of the platform principles, which created opportunities for their manifestation in future collaborations between local actors and farmers.
Key challenges of this approach include the restricted participation of crucial actors at higher scale levels, the limited number of learning platforms and their participants and interactions in between meetings due to financial constraints.
Overall, we conclude that farmer-centered learning platforms can contribute to inclusive and relational learning, provided that value chain and other actors are willing to foreground farmers' knowledge and innovation capacity.
Paper short abstract:
The Lions Club is known as an elitist service club from the outside, but on the inside it is all about recruiting and training new members.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution consists of the analysis of an association and its members. The purpose is to show that knowledge does not only belong to the academic world, held by professors in a school or an university, but that it is a capacity created by relations between individuals. The goal is to show that the mastery of knowledge is also the main concern of an association. Knowledge is the ability to built and express a discourse, manage members, protect or build an influence zone, it's political ! In this contribution, the build of the discourse will show the influence of North, and struggles between Africa and Asia.
For a decade, "Global South" members of the Lions Clubs International ensure the dynamism of the 100 hundred years' old "Global North" club of 1.5 million members. By rejuvenating the membership, and enlarging the area of philanthropic actions, "the guys from the south" become major players.
They adapt the "Northern model" to satisfy the International Board of Trustee in Chicago.
Ethnographic data collected since 2011 (Benin), 2015 (Congo) 2020 (South Africa) will show their greedy interest and fascination for a north American ruled association.
- Be a member prove your ability, because you're choosen for your capacities, after formations, exams, and finally a vote.
- African and Asian members share an interest in donations and media coverage of donations. During international meetings, members make public announcements, proclaiming with applause how much money they will give. $ 10,000, $ 15,000, $ 500,000…
- Lions Clubs creates with specific dress code, medals, flags and pennant a contemporary 'liturgy' that emphasizes, values pride and honor of the highest members: « You know, you have to put your hand in your pocket when you're a leader. It's one of the unwritten rules.", said a beninese Lion .
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It reveals that African and Asian leaders built their international status through "Global North" standards. On the other hand, it raises the question of the use of cunning as a strategy to infiltrate a Western board of trustee by pretending to accept the rules. And tells us, finally, that the desire to be part of this 34-seat Council will lead to heavy fighting between the Asian and African members against the Americans and the Europeans, who will restore their former colonial relations with certain African or Asian leaders.
Paper short abstract:
If futures are cultural facts (Appadurai 2013) and therefore diverse, obvious there must be alternative ways into these futures, too.
Paper long abstract:
Future and education are irresolvable interwoven with each other. Without future aspirations, most probably schools and universities would be fairly empty, as future aspirations feed educational institutions today. However, future is a cultural fact, as Appadurai (2013) puts it, and therefore pluralistic and contingent. To move at least from time to time successful towards a desirable future, one has to develop a navigational capacity lead by future aspirations, according to Appadurai. However, if futures are cultural facts and therefore diverse, obvious there must be alternative ways into these futures, too, and therefore the navigational capacity has to be culturally adjusted. My argument is that there are globally circulating ideas concerning an idea of universal education and a specific desirable future that do not connect well with certain socio-cultural contexts such as e.g. parts of India or some African contexts to avoid the misleading term 'Global South' (the focus on India derives from my personal scientific concentration on this context). In consequence, formal educational institutions (such as schools and universities) are not equally successful in diverse socio-cultural contexts to support the emergence of an effective navigational capacity for the majority of the population. Certain globally circulating aspirations and assumed ways of their fulfilment, e.g. getting a save and highly paid employment through invest in formal education might be part of the problem. They might have little connectivity with actual socio-cultural constellations in non-European-North-American contexts. Accordingly, I want to show that underprivileged in the so-called Global South are discriminated in two ways by these aspirations and the role, education plays in it.
Paper long abstract:
The importance of epistemological relationality in understanding ourselves and our world has been the focus of recent attention in global academic scholarship. In times past, this has been monopolized by one or some cultures over others. However, the components of this relationality have not been exhaustively theorized from different philosophical perspectives, allowing specific Western philosophical conceptions to dominate the dimension of discuss in literatures on this subject. The impact of this has been cultural supremacy, racial relegation and deprivation. This research offers a theoretical analysis of the global connection and ontological background that informs various conceptualizations of ourselves and our world from African, Western and Eastern world-views and unloads its implication for a value driven and harmonious coexistence. It aims at broadening this conception in Western and Eastern traditions, while showing what precedes this reflection and highlighting with analysis, the multiple relational process of knowing this African ontological value. This research therefore adopts the hermeneutics and critical analysis methods. It argues that multiplicity of world-views is a reflection of relationality in the unique ways we conceptualize reality from cultural events even though in diverse and informal forms. It concludes that this multiplicity in learning and understanding ourselves and our world forms the rational foundation for a complementary interrelation and mutual respect in the world and Africa in particular.
Paper long abstract:
Muslim clerics have traditionally held absolute authority to knowledge production and transmission either in learning circles or class settings. With advancement in media technology, however, this is bound to change. Young males and females seem to challenge the status quo giving alternative sources of not only knowledge production and transmission but also religious authority. This study seeks to highlight this view taking religious poems (qasida) and dances (zamuni) lately composed and transmitted through various media channels including radio stations, television as well as youtube. The study argues that use of qasida and zamuni not only challenges traditional settings on knowledge dynamics but also religious authority. Moreover, use of media in the transmission of knowledge through qasida brings into light the aspects of commoditization of religious knowledge as well as challenging traditional settings and beliefs on women voices and mixing of genders in public spaces.
Paper long abstract:
This paper seeks to examine the phenomenon of 'women-led' and 'women-only' established educational institutions (chuo or duski and madrassa) and the mediatization of female preachers' sermons as a form of transmission of Islamic knowledge. Specifically, the addresses the following themes; (a) the syllabus (curriculum) and structure of 'women-led' and 'women-only' Islamic educational institution; (b) the content of the female preachers' sermons in the CDs/DVDs; (c) and in the choice of the media tool by the female preachers in recording and conveying their sermons. The majority of Kenyan Muslims' children in Kenya are sent to the basic Qur'anic schools, which pass for different synonyms in the country such as vyuo (sing. chuo, coast region) and duksi (North-eastern region). These are simple shelters or rooms in private houses, where small clusters of children receive religious instruction under the observation of a single teacher, some of whom are women. Others are large institutions--madrassas--attached to mosques with numerous teachers working under an imam/sheikh and following some kind of syllabus. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the structure and the role of 'women-led' and 'women-only' educational institutions in the transmission of Islamic knowledge thereby producing religious authority in the country. More so, Kenya has a vibrant production, distribution and consumption of audio-visual media of religious content thereby presenting an ideal research site to examine investigate the influence of the media tool (CD/DVD) on the religious sermons of the Muslim female preachers in Kenya. In this respect, my paper will explore the emancipatory and/or conformism narratives represented by the female preachers in the selection of a certain media tool in delivering their sermons. Through the media technologies of CDs/DVDs, the paper will analyze the (de)-construction of traditions, concepts and practices resulting from the interaction and communication through the mediatized knowledge. The main objective of the paper is to show how Muslim female-dominated established educational institutions and the Muslim women engagement with the media tools generates creativity and thereby produces order and/or disorder in the Kenyan context. To realize the above objective, the study raises the following important questions: (a) To what extent are 'women-led' and 'women-only' established Islamic institutions geared in producing religious authority in the Kenyan context? (b) How far are the analyzed sermon themes corresponding to the gender of the preacher? (c) Are the female preachers considered authoritative and their mediatized sermons accepted by the general Muslim public?
Paper long abstract:
Learning in Muslim communities play an important role. Achieving Islamic knowledge is perceived as a duty for pious Muslims, no matter if the believer is male or female. This paper looks exclusively at female traditional scholars in contemporary Nouakchott. Traditional Islamic education is coexisting with modernized and secular education in Mauritania. The institution for traditional education is called maḥḍara and comprises various settings of Islamic knowledge tradition that can be described as learning circles. Meaning that a teacher gathers a group of students and transmits certain texts dealing with a specific discipline of Islamic knowledge, be it grammar, recitation, Sufism, jurisprudence, or early Islamic history just to name some of the possible content. The majority of these institutions aim at educating the younger generation and male students are more numerous than female. However, during last decades we witness an increasing demand of adults for studying these classical texts, among them are women.
When we have a look at representations of this traditional institution, we miss the female aspect. Nevertheless, female contributions to traditional education in Mauritania can be traced back to the 18th century. The neglect in history of their contributions has been discussed elsewhere and such neglect has continued to today's underrepresentation of the female participation in this institution in various media. This paper aims at analysing the role of female scholars within the system through a relational perspective and draws on how female space is defined and creating within such a masculine hegemony.