Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa ─ The Geography and Power of Knowledge Under Changing Conditions

This book takes an innovative approach to understanding the development of universities and addresses capacity building of African universities. For years, education has been high on the development agenda and recently also universities are being recognized as key drivers for societal growth. Therefore, capacity building of the African higher education sector is now widely included in donor policies in the Global North. Universities and their scientific knowledges are often seen to have ubiquitous qualities; yet, the type of institutions promoted worldwide are an outcome of development in learned institutions in Western Europe and North America the past 2-300 years. The question is how to interpret this development? The positions range from the dependency school which view the promotion of higher education as another imperialist approach (to Africa) to the universalistic position which sees the promotion of higher education as a key to modernising Africa.

This book explores what role specific locations have in the making of research and to analyse how local experience is addressed in teaching and in research. The different chapters analyse and show how it is negotiated and contested what constitutes legitimate scientific knowledge at African universities and discuss their future role in society. In doing so, the book draws on discussions about knowledge constructions, hybrid knowledges, and the effects of modernity. The book is divided into three main sections: The first section focuses on capacity building in the university sector. The second section uses researching and teaching climate change as examples of how knowledge is negotiated and academic identities build locally. Finally, the third section provides critical reflections on the power and politics of knowledge between local people and researchers.

This original book is aimed at researchers and postgraduate students in education, development studies, African studies and human geography, as well as anthropology and history.

Hanne Kirstine Adriansen is Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Lene Moller Madsen is Associate Professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Stig Jensen is Associate Professor and former director at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.