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Contribution short abstract:

The paper outlines dialogical border thinking, namely between sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Eastern Europe, which both symbolise a non-Western difference, albeit in a different scale and form, and proposes it as a method to challenge western-centric political economy of knowledge production.

Contribution long abstract:

Critical inquiries into the coloniality of geopolitics of knowledge production has regained a strong presence in academic debates and beyond. Decolonial thinkers have highlighted a need to developed horizontal, pluriversal or transversal dialogue bridging different epistemic locations in order to envision an inclusive cosmopolitan arrangement. Nevertheless, the main body of research structures the debate along the lines between the West and its different Others, given a western-centric bias of an institutionalized notion of academic excellence, publishing practices and research funding. In contrast, a dialogue between contexts and macro-regions outside of the West as a hegemonic place of knowledge production brings in different insights and can contribute to opening up a space for decolonial imaginaries as a process of creating inclusive cosmopolitan future as a new universal project.

The paper argues for border thinking as a method for transforming knowledge production. It focuses on two geopolitical contexts, namely sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Eastern Europe, which both symbolise a non-Western difference, yet in a different scale and form. It outlines dialogical border thinking between these two geopolitical contexts in order to explore how these two lines of criticism can inform each other in an effort to envision a future global research ecosystem. In particular, it focuses on feminist critique embedded in these two geopolitical contexts and on how a mutual intellectual exchange can contribute to challenging western-centric political economy of knowledge production and opening a broader space for alliances beyond a binary thinking of West-and-the-rest or white–non-white.