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Accepted Paper:
Catalyst or Cataclysm: Reconsidering the North-South unbalanced academic relationship to favour Africa
Olugbenga Samuel Falase
(Lead City University)
Paper short abstract:
Exploring the complexities and politics of the North-South relationship necessitates bridging the gap in unequal epistemic relations with the West. This study advocates an urgent need for the development of an autochthonous body of knowledge to be used to investigate Africa’s reality.
Paper long abstract:
Despite the perceived opportunities that have defined the North-South academic relationship, there is a renewed focus on a more balanced partnership between the two poles. Undoubtedly, the relationship has resulted in a Giant-Dwarf academic platform in which the ideologies of the Global North continue to dominate and shape the politics of knowledge production in academia. Over time, Africa and African researchers have continued to adapt, employ, and apply Western ideologies and theories to explain their continent's development processes, such as Modernisation theory, a scenario that has remained anathema to Africa's progress and development. However, to create a more equitable academic North-South relationship, there is an urgent need to construct an autochthonous body of knowledge that African intellectuals will employ to investigate and interrogate Africa's realities. Applying this indigenous strategy in several critical areas by African scholars will aid in achieving and maintaining sanity in the interaction with the West. African scholars should attempt to (1) decolonise knowledge and curriculum through the creation of indigenous theories that help to explain the realness of African situations; (2) decolonise funding through the internalisation of a 'culture of funding research' by African governments; (3) bridge the disparity of the rural-urban dichotomy, which has contributed to increased illiteracy and poverty rates (closing the poverty gap) and; (4) address infrastructural imbalances and political apathy toward academics in Africa. Without these steps, the Western hegemonic academic dominance will continue to prevail and Africa will continue to experience uneven epistemic interactions with the West.