Short Abstract

Imagining a South–South–North pluricentric framework connecting African, Asian, Latin American, Caribbean and European academic, civic and cultural actors to co-create knowledge, build networks, inform policy and generate meaningful societal impact.

Long Abstract

Drawing on experience in building an autonomous, academy-society Africa–Asia knowledge exchange platform, this roundtable explores how more pluricentric, reciprocal and circulatory forms of collaboration among African, Asian, Latin American and Caribbean, and European knowledge actors can generate new forms of knowledge with transformative societal and civic potential.

Building on the premise that equitable and inclusive collaboration is fundamental to meaningful partnerships, it asks what becomes possible when different intellectual traditions, lived experiences, methodologies and institutional capacities -within and beyond established academia- are connected through what we call a South–South–North knowledge framework.

The roundtable engages with the theme of African Prisms by extending the metaphor from how Africa is viewed and connected to how knowledge about, with and within Africa is co-produced, circulated and used. Bringing multiple perspectives into relation can reveal dimensions of Africa’s complex realities that may remain obscured within predominantly North–South or geographically segmented academic approaches. Such horizontal and vertical constellations of cooperation can generate new research agendas, methodologies and forms of co-created knowledge.

A central concern will be the knowledge–policy–society continuum. How can knowledge generated through international partnerships meaningfully involve civic and professional actors, policymakers, artists and other knowledge communities? And how can research, education, policy and societal experience circulate between these different spheres?

The discussion will examine the opportunities and challenges of such collaborations and consider how academic institutions can act as facilitator of inclusive, sustainable and inter-regional knowledge networks across regions, disciplines and forms of experience.