Paper short abstract:

This research draws on my experience of working for nine months in a tertiary institution in Lesotho. It explores the implications involved in the recent entrepreneurialisation of academia and the 'impactful', short-term research conducted by non-Basotho researchers.

Paper long abstract:

The Kingdom of Lesotho has long tantalised anthropologists for its locals that continue to protect themselves from the sun through cone-shaped basotho hats, through traditional woollen Basotho blankets that adorn the shoulders of pony-mounting Basotho herders, and for followers of Ferguson's Anti-Politics Machine. In recent years however, Lesotho has become one of the many countries that attracts another kind of ethnographer- that which aspires to conduct 'relevant' and 'useful' research with quantifiable returns. Drawing on nine months of employment in a local tertiary institution, this paper explores the power dynamics between researchers and host populations such as the tertiary institution I worked at in Lesotho. It seeks to understand how these dynamics have been altered by the entrepreneurialisation of academia and what kinds of repercussions it produces. Lesotho is a large recipient of international aid and donor programs due to high rates of child malnutrition and HIV, and academic scholars likewise often readily find grants to conduct 'impactful' research in this nation. But what are the real on the ground impacts of academic research that is regulated, commercialised, and short-term? What kinds of new structural changes come about, or are anticipated to come about, in fieldsites under these conditions? In what ways can 'impactful', government or industry funded research still be a social good?