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- Convenors:
-
Catherina Wilson
(Radboud University)
Mirjam de Bruijn (Leiden University)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- African researchers in the European academic system
- Location:
- Room 1228
- Sessions:
- Thursday 9 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
Co-creation in scientific knowledge production with African colleagues from within and outside the university is easier said than done. It is presented as a way to escape inequality relations based on colonial heritages. This panel compares different forms of co-creation as decolonization work.
Long Abstract:
Knowledge production through fieldwork is molded in Western epistemologies. Its rules and ethics follow specific standards that are not applicable to all settings. Within the decolonization debate, co-creation is a leeway. Co-creation is the collaborative development of new value (concepts, solutions) between knowledge creators from academia, artists, and others; and from different university environments. Within the ‘open source’ movement, co-creation is collaborative innovation.
Co-creation entrains African and European scientists, or artists, in a joint de-colonizing process of knowledge production. Digital environments that enable constant exchange over long distances and new forms of multi-modal research and publication facilitate co-creation.
However, in how far is co-creation a form of ‘decolonization work’? In other words, a process (action) that entails an ongoing reflection on hierarchies in knowledge production?
This panel focuses on the relationship between African and European knowledge producers/creators. We invite panelists to discuss their experiences with co-creation. We are interested in practices and forms of co-creation, in rules that are followed or subverted, and in solutions to ethical issues. Does co-creation develop epistemologies and lead to new ontologies?
Co-creation ties into the wave of intersectional decolonization. However, we are equally wary of the ways in which this debate increasingly runs the risk of radicalizing, and instead of opening science for other epistemologies, ends up blocking the discussion and creates more oppositions. How do we get past this blockade so that we can further decolonize and shed light on those practices that need yet to be decolonized? What form(s) of co-creation ‘work-s’?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 9 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
While doing digital ethnography in Kenya's social media sphere, the co-creative space of WhatsApp conversations with research participants showed a new epistemic pathway to understand post-truth, digital colonialism and networks of communicative relationships for activism.
Paper long abstract:
When conducting digital ethnography in African settings, this paper argues for the use of collaborative methodologies such as co-creation. In order to bring forward new epistemic pathways that challenge digital colonialism, it is necessary to align digital media scholarship with tools and methods from the Global South. I reflect on the experience of co-creation as a strategy to limit power dynamics, circumvent platform capitalism and solve the discomforts of undertaking digital ethnography, based on my own fieldwork as part of my Master's thesis. Acknowledging the limitations of the digital sphere such as anonymity, site architecture and surveillance, WhatsApp allowed participants to partake in the research as co-producers of knowledge. Through collaboration and the "scroll-back" method (Robards & Lincoln, 2019), participants' inputs helped build the online field (i.e. a Twitter profile for the research) and drive the topic with alternative sources of knowledge (reports, news, opinions, datasets…). Co-creation, I believe, enabled my research to portray a type of youth online activism that I refer to as "explanatory activism", a form of political knowledge circulation and dissection that allows young Kenyans to navigate online post-truth and political manipulation. I conclude that methodological sensitivity is critical for decolonising digital media work as it can adapt research to include localised appropriations of technology (Schoon et al., 2020) and help understand African digital experiences.
Paper short abstract:
This paper critically reflects on experiences the authors made in the context of a collaborative research project. It shows how co-creation as collaborative field research can lead to epistemic opening, but also points to several limitations encountered when it comes to its decolonizing potential.
Paper long abstract:
Co-creation of knowledge takes place through intimate collaboration between actors from different backgrounds. It points our attention to an “epistemic surplus” which is not possible in hitherto mainstreamed forms of knowledge production. But what is this “epistemic surplus”? How and under what conditions does co-creation allow for it to evolve? And how does it relate to the aim of decolonizing knowledge (production)? This paper critically reflects on experiences the authors made in the context of a collaborative research project in which researchers from Burkina Faso, the Gambia and Germany conduct field work together, including data collection and analysis, and eventually, publish research results jointly. The project speaks to co-creation in a double sense: it explores new ways of collaborative research between African and European academics, but it also co-creates knowledge in a transdisciplinary sense by exploring everyday knowledges and perceptions of African regional interventions and demonstrating their relevance also as academic knowledge. Our contribution shows that in such a setting collaborative field research allowed for epistemic openings as it (1) adds another layer of reflexivity through ongoing and joint interpretation of research data and reflection on research practices; (2) allows for time and space to develop a common language and to work across disciplines. However, we also encountered that postcolonial hierarchies continue to limit the decolonizing potential of co-creation, especially where funding lines seek to enforce differences between “us” and “them” and are ignorant towards diverging incentive structures and education biographies for scholars from different contexts.