Paper short abstract:

This study re-appraises the global north-south collaborative initiatives for sustainable knowledge production in African studies. It examines the existing system of collaboration, the challenges impeding African knowledge production, and ways of promoting knowledge production in African studies.

Paper long abstract:

Knowledge production in African studies seems, in recent times, to oscillate between an individual and collective memory. While it is apt to opine that emerging scholars, through rigorous scholarship, continue to contribute to the global knowledge pool, it is glaring to astute observers that knowledge production in African studies can be made better. Achieving sustainable knowledge production, and by extension, epistemic plurality in African studies is an uphill task that requires a significant input of both the global north and south. This study seeks to re-appraise the global north-south collaborative initiatives for sustainable knowledge production in African studies. It specifically examines the existing system of collaboration, with particular reference to funding patterns and modalities, mobility programmes towards improved scholarship, and infrastructural grants for the institutionalization of African studies centres. This study investigates the challenges impeding sustainable African knowledge production. It engages new methodologies for the promotion of knowledge production in African studies. It addresses the following issues: what is the nature of existing synergy between the global north and south? Why and how should both regions contribute to the ongoing subject? Which challenges impede knowledge production and epistemic plurality in African studies? And what stratagem can help promote knowledge production in African studies? This study adopts the theories of cultural developmentalism and globalization and argues that both the global north and south are principal actors in knowledge production and epistemic plurality in African studies.

Keywords: African studies, knowledge production, epistemic plurality, global north and south