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Eur06


Destabilizing powerful asymmetries in Afro-European knowledge co-production 
Convenors:
Carmel Rawhani (Wits University (Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab))
Lucas-Andrés Elsner (Technical University of Berlin)
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Format:
Panel
Stream:
African researchers in the European academic system
Location:
Room 1228
Sessions:
Wednesday 8 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin

Short Abstract:

How can we constructively confront knowledge production asymmetries in Afro-European collaborative research and the larger academic environment? Here we reflect on co-production's key challenges in North-South and South-South academia through the lens of Urban Studies.

Long Abstract:

Sustainable development scholarship (where a majority of academic funding lies) in African cities has inherited numerous concepts from the bodies of knowledge and policy rooted in Europe. However, as African and European scholars of the Global South, we often find these concepts lacking in fit and applicability. Interrogating this reality reveals significant asymmetries underlying the knowledge, policies and practices which scholars of and from the South are faced with, and it is in this context which co-production has been presented as a potential solution. However, co-production finds itself not only impacted by, but often a reproducer of these very same inequities. Thus, before we can begin rectifying knowledge production asymmetries we need to understand them, and it is that exciting task which this panel proposes to tackle.

This panel looks at African urban studies and related fields as critical examples of the manifestation of these knowledge asymmetries and the potential for hyper-localized non-reciprocal perspectives, and invites contributions rooted in critical theoretically-informed or practice-based approaches to tackle two key interrelated problems:

1) The hierarchical political economy of research production (power imbalances and their impact on who sets the table, and who gets a seat ranging from co-authorship, to mobilities, to the perceived value assigned to working at particular universities and publishing in particular spaces within North-South and South-South cooperation)

2) developing the visibility of African voices in co-productive spaces beyond mere participants (including the need to move beyond the superstars of the research world, both European and African)

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Wednesday 8 June, 2022, -