Round table: Knowledge production, regional research organizations and the bridging of the local–global chasm in development cooperation

Convener: Ato Onoma, CODESRIA

Knowledge production stands to play a role in the effort to achieve synergies between local processes and global ones for the attainment of development goals. Many recognize that better knowledge of local processes can help actors at the global level better design and calibrate engagements with local processes in dealing with challenges for which cooperation across borders is the only guarantee of any success. But knowledge production as a process has to be conceived of as playing a role that breaks out of the mold of rendering the ‘natives’ legible to their ‘saviors.’ It has to be understood also as an exercise by local actors dwelling on the self and on others that helps them understand and shape the global, which they have to be understood as being constitutive of. The role of regional research councils in this invaluable process of knowledge production will be the focus of this panel. Panelists will focus on the state of these institutions, the opportunities and challenges that face them and on alternative ways of imagining the future of these institutions in a fast changing world.

24 Aug., 09:00−10:30, De Geer Lecture Hall

Speakers
Ato Onoma, CODESRIA
Victor Adetula, Nordic Africa Institute
Anne Kubai, Uppsala University
Lennart Wohlgemuth, University of Gothenburg
Francis Nyamnjoh, University of Cape Town