Paper short abstract:

While recognising the enormity and complexity of various challenges, I want to focus on my experience, specifically on what I call “triple hurdles”. The triple hurdles are epistemic orientation, language, and passport positionality.

Paper long abstract:

The challenges associated with epistemic orientations emanate from the hegemony of Eurocentric epistemologies in development studies. The universalist claim and hegemony of Euro-centred knowledge frameworks, theories and concepts contribute to disregarding and discrediting ways of knowing and interpreting the world I have been exposed to growing up in Ethiopia. Hence, bringing non-Eurocentric epistemic orientations into my teaching and research is always challenging. The second hurdle concerning language concerns the normalisation of English as the only language for producing academic output recognised in evaluating my academic success and achievements. The incentives to produce academic outputs in languages other than English are almost non-existent. As a result, aspiring academics like me are discouraged from producing knowledge outputs easily accessible by most people from whom the empirical data is gathered and about whom most research in development studies/African studies is apparently concerned. The third hurdle is passport positionality, where the nationality/passport of academics becomes a restricting factor for their social and physical mobility. This includes the expensive fees that immigrants pay to renew their and family members' visas and the massive sums of money, time, and psychological resources that Global South academics pay when they plan to travel for academic activities (such as applying for Schengen Visas). I want to reflect on how the implications of these “triple hurdles” can be further explored and reflected on within the context of pursuing social and epistemic justice while examining possibilities of reconfiguring African studies.