Paper short abstract:

Collaborative ventures are recently at the heart of scientific knowledge production and base upon the cooperative work of scholars from the “Global South” and “Global North”. We discuss the unbalanced character of these relations, challenges in cooperative efforts, and future prospects.

Paper long abstract:

Departing from an ongoing interdisciplinary research collaboration between natural scientists working in Africa and social scientists based in Europe on the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), this paper explores friendship as distinct and particularly valuable research relationship.

The value of interdisciplinary workshops differs amongst the different disciplinary communities and we are aware of geopolitical structures that feed into our intercontinental encounter. These differences matter. Despite or perhaps because of them, friendship keeps our interest in each other and in each other’s research alive irrespective of how it features in the narration of academic success, typically measured in terms of output, which we respect as an important mechanism of science in the making.

While astrophysicists around the globe are interested in knowledge about the universe, our astrophysicist friends in Africa merge this interest with an interest in development. As African studies scholars, we first responded to this interest with skepticism: our training foregrounded critiques of development and we were taught to conceptualize the problematic dynamics of betterment on the African continent. But the friendship with the astrophysicists has challenged our assumptions. In recognition of “development” having the potential to become a “common concern” (Stengers 2011), we embrace the path towards this common concern and acknowledge how our friendship with astrophysicists in Africa is influencing our academic judgment of what counts as relevant for us as individual researchers.