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- Convenors:
-
Lerato Posholi
(University of Basel)
Ralph Weber (University of Basel)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- African researchers in the European academic system
- Location:
- Room 1228
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
It has become an unquestioned trend to assume that social location (positionality) determines epistemic location. The purpose of the panel is to critically examine the relationship between social location and epistemic location.
Long Abstract:
It has become an unquestioned trend to acknowledge that there is a relationship between social location (positionality) and epistemic location. In its radical version, the relationship is claimed to be such that social location determines epistemic location. Kindling this idea of a strong relationship between social location and epistemic location is what can be called the thesis of the 'epistemic privilege of the marginalized'. According to this thesis, there are 'special' epistemic resources that accompany marginalized positions in society. This thesis is central in critical traditions such as Marxism, feminism and decolonial theory. In decolonial theory, for example, the marginal position occupied by scholars from the global South is generally touted as an epistemic resource that should be harnessed to facilitate reciprocity in global knowledge production and advance a critical understanding of the global order. At the same time, the notion of situated knowledge carries the implication that all knowledge is limited because of the social locatedness of knowledge production. This panel critically examines the different ways in which the relationship between social location and epistemic location can be formulated. Our main goal is to delineate the constraints and possibilities of positionality as epistemic resource in knowledge production.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -Sally Matthews (Rhodes University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects on the positionality of African Studies scholars exploring how their positionality affects their ability to contribute to the decolonization of the field.
Paper long abstract:
The field of African Studies has long been criticised for its colonial origins and the continued imprint these origins have on its current preoccupations and orientations. In order to address such criticisms, it is widely argued that African scholars need to play a more central role in the scholarly study of Africa. In making this argument, it is assumed that the social location of such scholars (i.e. their identity as Africans) will mean that their epistemic position will be significantly different to that of the non-African scholars who have historically dominated African Studies and, therefore, that their increased prominence within the field of African Studies is an important component of the decolonization of the field. However, discussions on the decolonization of African Studies also often warn that it is possible for Africans to advance Eurocentric views and therefore imply that one’s social location or identity does not neatly determine one’s epistemic position. This paper reflects on the positionality of African Studies scholars exploring how their positionality affects knowledge production in the field. I hope to fruitfully bring together two distinct but mutually relevant discussions: feminist discussions on the relationship between our social and epistemic locations, and discussions about the decolonization of African Studies. In particular, I reflect on the positionality of those in ‘in-between’ positions (such as African scholars in Europe and white South African scholars) and the effects of such positionality on their contribution to African Studies.
Joschka Philipps (University of Bayreuth)
Paper short abstract:
Situations are the most immediately experienceable units of analysis in the social sciences. This essay takes a situational lens to relate social and epistemic positionality, the role of emotional energy therein, and the implications for conceptualizing reciprocity in African studies.
Paper long abstract:
The question of how (social) positionality shapes (epistemic) perspectives is often addressed in rather structuralist terms, i.e., along the lines of race, class, gender, religion, sexuality and other markers of social inclusion and exclusion. In this essay, I seek to take a more situational lens on the relation between social and epistemic location. Such a perspective focuses on social situations as sites in which structures of inclusion and exclusion are constantly in the making (and un-making). To measure whether situations are inclusive or exclusive towards their participants, it focuses in particular on levels of "emotional energy" (Collins 2005: 39): social exclusion comes with a sense of low emotional energy, of feeling out of place, or of not being able to contribute to the situation, while social inclusion is usually felt in terms of an effortless flow, a mutual focus of attention, and a reciprocal relation. An individual’s social location in a continuum of situations is not stable but contingent, for instance on who else takes part in a social situation and how situations evolve. “Epistemic privilege of the marginalized”, as discussed in this panel, thus resides in structural positions of social marginality as an abstract potential, but it is realized (and foreclosed) in concrete social situations. The essay discusses several empirical situations in this regard as well as the implications for reciprocity in African studies and the social sciences in general.
Kudus Adebayo (University of Ibadan)
Paper short abstract:
To comprehend the value and promise of positionality in fashioning a productive vision of situated knowledge that amplifies the voices of the marginalised, oppressed and silenced, I argue that we must equally attempt to understand who gains from the “positionality enterprise.”
Paper long abstract:
The need for researchers to pay attention to how positionality or social location shape/determine the knowledge they generate is a going concern in many academic fields and intellectual traditions of practice. However, what are researchers from the global South saying when they frame their positionality as a resource for instituting a representative, fair and just global epistemic order? How may these researchers acknowledge the intertwining of their positionality with the lives of the researched when they deploy social location for negotiating and deconstructing established Western epistemic authority? The first question invites us to dissect the unstated or under-articulated issues in what we could call the “positionality enterprise”. In contrast, the second advances a push towards more critical engagement with how researchers and the researched benefit -- or not -- from the turn to positionality. By reflecting on “who positionality “epp”?, a poser framed after a 2016 Nigerian Street/Hip-Hop song, I will argue that, to properly probe the value and promise of positionality in fashioning a productive vision of situated knowledge that amplifies the voices of the marginalised, oppressed and silenced, we must equally attempt to understand who gains from the positionality enterprise. The contribution seeks to confront the teleological question, which broadens and contributes to the moral and ethical considerations in positionality and knowledge production debate.
Lerato Posholi (University of Basel) Ralph Weber (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the contributions of the panelists and reflects on the broader question of how, or whether, positionality facilitates or limits reciprocity in global knowledge production.
Paper long abstract:
This paper presents a critical discussion and commentary on the different contributions by the panelists. The framing question is how positionality may constrain or enhance reciprocity in the production of knowledge. We draw on the insights offered in the different contributions to reflect on this question.