Paper short abstract:

In the context of neo-liberal development strategies, partnerships are built around a negotiated common set of interests and are driven by a belief that market relations are the most effective setting for the realisation of interests for both poor people and global capital.

Paper long abstract:

Critics of such neoliberal approaches argue, that partnerships are in fact a unequal vehicle for offering global capital access to local assets through the construction of supply chains. . This has resulted in partnerships with a number of private and multinational corporations, institutionalizing a market-based approach and a business sector model into development programmes and projects whose aim is to integrate resources of the Global South more effectively into the global economy. In this paper we discuss the political economy of North-South research partnerships. The increased salience of "local knowledge" in contemporary approaches to the study of development and peace entails that previously Northern-dominated knowledge construction and reproduction processes appear increasingly inadequate as a basis for effective policy in the fields of peacebuilding and statebuilding and in development practice more broadly. The "local turn" in the study of peace, conflict and development creates an imperative for Southern participation in supplying data and analysis for theoretical and policy innovation. While articulated as negotiated agreements serving the interests of both contracting parties, in fact research partnerships are skewed in favour of Northern partners due to stark inequalities of resources and cultural capital embedded in the historical development and contemporary institutional formations of academia. Northern and Southern partners face different structural conditions of participation in such partnerships.

In this paper we discuss the political economy of North-South research partnerships, asking:

1. What structural constraints affect North-South research collaboration?

3. How does this affect knowledge production about development challenges?