Send message to Author

Short abstract

Drawing on my trajectory between Burkina Faso and France, I reflect on entering European STS through questions of hierarchy, student selection, and belonging, and on how these reveal unequal North/South conditions of academic recognition.

Long abstract

I would like to contribute to this roundtable by reflecting on what it means to enter French and European STS from a trajectory shaped between Burkina Faso and France. This idea came back to me while rereading journals and notebooks I kept during my early studies and in the years following my move to France. They captured my surprise at the differences in academic life: how hierarchy is expressed in relations between peers and supervisors, how student selection often relies on social and economic capital in more subtle ways, and how one learns, over time, to internalize these codes. I would also like to briefly connect this to a previous essay I wrote on why decoloniality seems more visible in STS teaching and discussion in France than in Burkina Faso. Taken together, these reflections offer a situated account of academic socialization and of how belonging, legitimacy, and intellectual agendas are unevenly shaped across North/South academic spaces.