Author: CODESRIA 2

CODESRIA Bulletin Online, No. 6, May 2025

Indigenous African Knowledge and the Challenge of Epistemic Translation

Zubairu Wai, University of Toronto, Canada

Keynote Address: African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK), Conference organised by CODESRIA, King Fahd Palace Hotel – Dakar, Senegal, 25–27 November 2024

Allow me to start by recalling an encounter at another CODESRIA meeting in Dakar, in January 2013. In collaboration with Point Sud (Centre for Research on Local Knowledge), based in Bamako, Mali, CODESRIA had co-organised a conference, ‘Africa N‘ko: Debating the Colonial Library’. The conference had brought together some of Africa’s finest intellectuals to consider the implications of what Congolese philosopher V.Y. Mudimbe designated a ‘colonial library’ on knowledge production and gnostic practices on and about Africa, as well as imagine the continent beyond the epistemic regions, structuring violence and contaminating vectors of this library.
Coinciding with the conference was Operation Serval, a French military intervention in Mali ostensibly to oust Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists who had seized control of the north of Mali and were pushing into the centre of the country. Like every other ‘savage war for peace’, Operation Serval was justified in the name of a higher ethical purpose: namely, to prevent the Malian state from collapse and rescue it from the savagery of Islamists harkening to irrational and premodern beliefs. Among those attending the conference, however, the concerns were especially over the protection of historical and cultural artefacts – specifically, the manuscripts and knowledge troves of medieval West Africa housed in a library in Timbuktu, central Mali.
Indeed, Timbuktu had, under the kings of Mali and Songhai, flourished not only as an important trading post on the trans-Saharan caravan routes but also as a thriving commercial, cultural, and especially, educational centre in medieval West Africa. The Sankoré Mosque/University, for example, attracted many famous scholars from the Islamic world from as far as Andalusia, Egypt and Syria. And this, in addition to a thriving book trade, established the city as a renowned scholarly centre in the medieval and early modern world. Under the rule of Askia Muhammad the Great of Songhai (1493–1528), for example, the Sankoré University reached its apogee. Its archives are a significant historical and cultural monument and remain one of the most important sources for the reconstruction of West African history. And only a fraction of these invaluable documents has been translated and decoded. Obviously, the need to preserve and protect this archive is beyond debate, and in the context of a conference on the colonial library and its implications for knowledge cultivation practices in Africa, the concerns over the protection of the library of Timbuktu, which forms part of the Indigenous African archives, were well founded and justified. Read the full Text …

CODESRIA Bulletin Online, No. 5, May 2025

The Changing World Order and Rise of Transcontinental Racial Politics

by Yusuf Bangura.

I recently listened to an insightful 25-minute interview of The Guardian journalist, Chris McGreal, on Democracy Now!’s YouTube channel (Democracy Now! 2025), which discussed the apartheid roots of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has carved out for himself a big job in Trump’s government to reorganise the US’s federal bureaucracy. In that interview, I was struck that a group of white South Africans who were raised in the apartheid system had penetrated not only the high-tech industry in the US but also joined forces with Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, inserted themselves into the Trump administration, and were part of Trump’s grand strategy to overturn the liberal order in the US and globally. The insights I gained from the interview led me to read more about the background and activities of the group. I also refreshed my understanding of hard-right or white supremacist groups in the US, Europe and South Africa, to gain insights into what looks like a convergence of interests and the transnationalisation of the group’s activities.

After listening to the interview, I hypothesised that the breakdown of the global liberal order is not only empowering authoritarian regimes across the world and ushering in old-fashioned big-power politics, as realist scholars in international relations predict; it is also connecting three types of racial politics globally. These are the politics of the anti-immigrant and pro-white MAGA movement in the US; the politics of the nativist or anti-immigrant far-right parties in Europe; and the politics of ‘white victimhood’ in South Africa, which seeks to hold back or overturn progressive social change in South Africa and elsewhere. Read more …

CODESRIA Bulletin Online, No. 4, May 2025 – V. Y. MUDIMBE: A Tribute

Zubairu Wai, University of Toronto, Canada

During the recently concluded Academic Freedom in Africa Conference, convened by CODESRIA at the University of Dar es Salaam, the gathering took a moment out of the planned schedule to reflect upon the late Professor Valentin Mudimbe. Prof. Mudimbe’s passing on 21st April 2025 occurred too close to the event for the Council to formally dedicate a session to him in the conference programme. The Council is grateful to Professor Zubairu Wai, who accepted, on short notice, to step in and deliver a befitting tribute – not only to his teacher, but also to his friend.

While CODESRIA did not have a major engagement with Prof. Mudimbe, his work reverberated immensely in discussions across all major CODESRIA convenings. His concept of the ‘colonial library’ was perhaps a good touchstone not only for conceptualizing the notion of an invented ‘Africa’, but also for exposing the erasure implicit in that construction. This erasure of the non-Europhone intellectuals and the ‘Islamic library’ was the starting point of Professor Ousmane Kane’s critique, originally published by CODESRIA and further elaborated in his subsequent writings.

It takes a great scholar to command the kind of intellectual presence that Prof. Mudimbe did. We are honoured to present a text of Prof. Wai’s tribute to him. On behalf of the Council, we extend our condolences and best wishes to his family and loved ones. To his fellow interlocutors, we are not just inspired by his erudite contributions but are challenged to carry his reflections forward with the depth and clarity he embodied.

. Read the full Text …

The Intellectual in Africa’s Policy Processes: A Convening in Memory of Prof Abdalla S. Bujra

Malindi, Kenya | 7-8 April 2025

CODESRIA is fifty-two years old. Although it was formally established in 1973, its ideational origins date back to a conference held in Bellagio, Italy in 1964 on ‘Economic Research in Africa’. Among the ten directors of African-based research institutes invited, only two were African. The rest were either French or British. The stark underrepresentation of African directors at the Bellagio conference served as a catalyst for a series of meetings by African scholars in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which came to be abbreviated as CODESRIA (Conference of Directors of Economics and Social Research Institutes in Africa).1 CODESRIA grew beyond meetings to not only acquire a recognisable name and institutional strength in the 1970s and 1980s but also earn legitimacy among African academics and policy actors. Many of these contributed in their own ways to strengthening CODESRIA’s intellectual agenda and cementing the value of its knowledge to shaping policy processes across the continent. Less well-known, yet profoundly impactful in shaping the intellectual trajectories of the Council and policy processes of several institutions, was Professor Abdalla Bujra. Bujra, as he was known in the community, passed on at home in Malindi, Kenya on 8th January 2025. His relative obscurity was not because his contributions were not of the magnitude of his peers, but rather because of his self-effacing character. Bujra was one of the last remaining founding members of CODESRIA having served as the second Executive Secretary of CODESRIA from 1975 to 1985. Prior to this, he had worked alongside the founding Executive Secretary, Prof. Samir Amin, to birth the CODESRIA we know today and put in place some of the institutional mechanisms that still define the Council. Together with Samir Amin and Adebola Onitiri, they organised the first General Assembly of CODESRIA in 1973 to formalise the organization. The firm establishment of the institutional framework of CODESRIA, and its emergence as a formidable organisation representing Africa and showcasing the best of its work in the social sciences, germinated and took root under Bujra’s leadership. During his tenure, he spearheaded and worried about growing the organisation based on a principle of institutional autonomy in a context where CODESRIA depended on external funding partners. The Council has embraced this principle based on Bujra’s pioneering thinking on institutional autonomy, and subsequent Executive Secretaries of the Council – guided by their respective Executive Committees – have upheld this as the cornerstone of CODESRIA’s engagement with those who support it. As a result, CODESRIA has developed structures that define its own independent intellectual agenda and can seek support based on this agenda. This autonomy explains why the Council has, periodically, turned away generous funding opportunities whenever potential partners define, in advance, the agenda they intend to fund.

The ability to define its own research agenda lies at the heart of CODESRIA’s commitment to basic research and its resistance to research agendas defined in advance by predetermined policy dictates. In addition to prioritising institutional autonomy, Bujra significantly contributed to establishing basic research as CODESRIA’s forte and worked deliberately to expand the Council’s intellectual agenda. Under his leadership, numerous academic conferences, seminars and workshops were organised across the continent, addressing key themes such as industrialisation, rural development, economic integration, technology, population and democracy. As the intellectual community grew and mobilized, these themes evolved, reflecting the Council’s dynamic engagement with pressing scholarly and policy concerns. The Council became interested in conceptualising the social sciences in Africa with an eye to presenting a critique of their Eurocentric foundations, conceptualising and defining the terrain of social science research in Africa, and positioning CODESRIA as the premier institution advancing African voices in the social sciences and humanities in the Continent. By the 1980s, the Council’s efforts in advancing the social sciences and humanities were well underway.

The shift in interest towards understanding the evolution and role of the social sciences was in response to the increased mobilisation of the African social science community and the emergence of epistemic communities around specific questions and debates about Africa. This mobilisation was not only about expansion but also about entrenching the community as an identifiable pan- African network. The Council had begun to mobilise different working groups, a process that eventually led, in the 1980s, to the formation of research groups variously named National Working Groups, Multi-National Working Groups and Comparative Research Networks.

The Council’s success was also affirmed by the launch and eventual coming of age of Africa Development, CODESRIA’s flagship social science journal, which is publishing its fiftieth volume this year. Bujra also oversaw the publication of numerous influential books and scholarly works. Coupled with this was a deliberate attempt to deal with the historic fragmentation of African social science communities along narrow national, regional and even linguistic lines. CODESRIA introduced a multilingual publishing approach with translations of its publications in at least two languages spoken widely within Africa’s intellectual communities. Translations from English to French and vice versa became almost compulsory at meetings CODESRIA organised. Bujra articulated the vision for publications and translations in his Editorial in the inaugural issue of Africa Development. After reviewing the growing literature on the study of the continent, highlighting gaps and numerous weakness that left an intellectual space for Africa Development to fill, he justified the need for the Council to focus on the problem of underdevelopment, arguing that existing studies were not illuminating on the fundamental nature of the development process. For him, the ultimate objective was ‘to provide an opportunity for African scholars to contribute to the general development of the continent through vigorous discussion of existing development strategies, problems  and  alternatives’.  Speaking directly  about  the  purpose  of  the  Africa Development, Bujra wrote, that it would seek to draw attention to the neglected areas of research in Africa and “to provide a forum for African (and non-African) scholars to debate on important issues as well as to make known the findings of their research. In this way, we hope to encourage more relevant and policy-oriented research within an African perspective. The ultimate objective is to provide an opportunity for African scholars to contribute to the general development of the continent  through  vigorous  discussion  of  existing  development  strategies,  problems  and alternatives. I am an optimist and therefore am sure that this challenge will be taken up by African social scientists.”

By the time Bujra left the service of CODESRIA in 1985, the image of CODESRIA as a pan- African organisation that represented the best of Africa’s intellectual contributions in the social sciences and humanities had taken shape. By establishing this sound basis for institutional practices, Bujra and the colleagues he worked with ensured that African engagement with global discourses shifted away from the colonial and Afro-pessimist pedigree they had largely been based on to a less racist and more political economy-driven orientation.

Abdalla Bujra’s work serves as both an important entry point and a vantage point for examining the role of the intellectual in Africa’s policy arenas. While this meeting is organised to honour his memory and commemorate his contributions, reducing these contributions to personal tributes of his life would be a disservice to his legacy. It is essential to also reflect on the broader context from which Bujra came from at the Kenyan coast, the academic engagements he undertook, the policy interventions he pioneered or led, and the implications of those policies on a range of actors and institutions across the continent and beyond. It is, for instance, useful to reflect on the “alternative to the scorched-earth market liberalization agenda then being pursued by the IMF and the World Bank” that Bujra led. Prof. Chege, in his Tribute to Bujra, argues that the DPFM which Bujra founded and led “took the middle position in the debates around economic liberalisation vouching for “market economies with social welfare benefits for all.” He further noted that in Bujra’s 2005 edited book on democratic transition in Kenya, Bujra advocated “‘a struggle from liberal to social democracy”’, not the hard-left Maoism of some of his former Dar es Salaam colleagues.” How have the ideas that Bujra advanced panned out in Kenya or Africa more broadly? and what elements of his thinking should we carry forward as we critically reflect on the current global changes?

This convening will therefore be organised around three formats: i) family reflections on Bujra’s life; ii) personal tributes from those who knew, lived with and engaged Bujra; and iii) intellectual reflections on his scholarly/intellectual contributions, culminating in an attempt to tease out the key issues that constitute our understanding of the role of the intellectual in Africa’s policy processes. The programme agenda is organised around these formats but also includes an afternoon visit to Bujra’s place of internment. Participants in the meeting include senior members of the CODESRIA community,  former  Executive  Secretaries,  former  and  current  members  of  the  Executive Committee and colleagues from the local Kenyan universities who knew or engaged Bujra in various capacities. We are also privileged to be joined by Bujra’s family including his two sons, brothers and sisters, and friends and comrades from Malindi and Lamu.

 

1 The original meaning of CODESRIA was the Conference of Directors of Economics and Social Research Institutes in Africa. As CODESRIA’s agenda evolved, it retained the acronym while redefining its full name, first as the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa, and finally to its current iteration: the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. See the piece in CODESRIA Bulletin, https://journals.codesria.org/index.php/codesriabulletin/article/view/338/342.

CODESRIA Bulletin , number 1, 2025

 Special Issue Reflection on the Contribution of CODESRIA Second Executive Secretary 

In this Issue 

Walking with Professor ABDALLA S. BUJRA // Cheminer avec le professeur ABDALLA S. BUJRA

  1. Prof. ABDALLA BUJRA, 1938–2025: CODESRIA’s Towering Pillar  Godwin Murunga ………………………………………. 3
  2. Prof. ABDALLA BUJRA, 1938–2025: le pilier gigantesque du CODESRIA   Godwin Murunga ………………………….. 7
  3. Editorial to Inaugural Issue of Africa Development, Volume 1, Number 1, 1976 (Republished) Abdalla S. Bujra ………………………….11

Tributes to ABDALLA BUJRA // Hommages à ABDALLA BUJRA

4. Condoléances à la famille de BUJRA et au CODESRIA Condolences to Bujra’s family, and to CODESRIA  Taladidia Thiombiano. …………………………………………………..15

5. Professor ABDALLA SAID BUJRA, 1938–2025: A Pioneer Pan-Africa Scholar, An Institution-Builder and Man of Conscience Michael Chege …………………………………………………….15

6. A Tribute to ABDALLA BUJRA  Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o ……………………………………………17

7. Homage to ABDALLA BUJRA  Mahmood Mamdani …………………………………………………………………18

8. ABDALLA BUJRA: A Life of Unparalleled Service Adebayo Olukoshi    …………………………………………………..19

9. ABDALLA BUJRA’s Legacy in Building the CODESRIA Community  Mshaï Mwangola ………………………………………20

10. ABDALLA S. BUJRA, and Futures Studies in Africa: A Noticer’s Environmental Scanning  Leopold Mureithi ……………………….22

Other Thematic Interventions // Autres interventions thématiques

11. Why France Can’t Be Nigeria’s Strategic Partner Yusuf Bangura ……………………………………………………..27

12. Indigenous African Knowledge and the Challenge of Epistemic Translation Zubairu Wai ……………………………..40

Announcements // Annonces

13. African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK)…………………………………54

14. Bourses pour la recherche sur les savoirs indigènes et alternatifs en Afrique (AFRIAK)…………………………………….57

You can access the special issue here

ACADEMIC FREEDOM CONFERENCE: Application opportunities for self-sponsored participants

University of Dar es Salaam, 29th April – 2nd May 2025

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is delighted to announce a limited number of additional opportunities on its agenda for participation in the forthcoming conference on Academic Freedom in Africa: Revisiting the Kampala Declaration. We invite individuals or institutions that wish to participate to submit their requests for consideration. The Council will select, on a competitive basis, those whose applications are assessed to be relevant to the objectives and agenda of the conference. Both individual and institutional applications are welcome.

Those wishing to submit applications should take note of the following.

Application Process:

  • Individual applicants should submit applications that include the following details:
    • Full names.
    • Designation
    • Institutional affiliation.
    • Nationality
    • A brief explanation, not exceeding 300 words, on why they wish to participate in the Academic Freedom Conference.

*The explanation should state the CODESRIA membership status of the applicant.

  • Institutional applicants should submit applications that include the following details:
    • Name of institution.
    • Full names, designations, and nationalities of all the participants the intends to sponsor.
    • A brief explanation, not exceeding 300 words, stating why the institution wishes to participate in the Academic Freedom Conference.

*The explanation should state the institution’s CODESRIA membership status.

  • Application closes on the 04th April 2025.
  • A notification including registration procedures will be sent directly to successful applicants.

Participation costs:

  • The overall costs of participation in the conference are detailed below:
USD XOF EUR
Registration fees 300 180 300 275
Subsistence 250 150 250 229
Member fee 50 30 050 46

*Exchange rate:  1USD = 601 XOF / 0.91 Eur               Source: Oanda.com of 18/03/2025

  • Payment for the conference entitles the participant to the following:
    • Participation in all conference sessions.
    • Conference registration pack and access to all conference documents.
    • Coffee and lunch at the conference venues.
  • The participant will bear all other expenses relating to the Conference.

How to Apply:

Call for Proposals: African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK)

Deadline: 15th May 2025

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce a call for proposals for a new research and fellowship programme, the African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK). This programme is offered with the support of the Mastercard Foundation as part of the Foundation’s commitment to advance education and skills for young people in Africa, and in recognition of the contribution of the late Ghanaian intellectual, Dr Sulley Gariba in advocating for the place of African knowledge in Research and Evaluation.

This programme seeks to implement an innovative approach to training a new generation of young people to design research projects and produce knowledge as a partnership between academic mentors on the one hand and bearers of Indigenous knowledge on the other. This approach will privilege local, Indigenous, and endogenous knowledge as forms of knowledge or knowledge systems that are deeply embedded in communities and closely tied to their lived experiences. Although these forms of knowledge may be geographically proximate to the young people in Africa, they remain inaccessible to them partly because of the dominance of Western formats of learning in our school and University curriculum and partly owing to the gerontocratic nature of our communities, where such knowledge is preserved for a few, predominantly male knowledge-bearers. This approach is innovative because it redirects us to use what we have in our communities and invites us to appreciate the many ways in which what we have in our communities is used, preserved and disseminated.

At its core, AFRIAK is premised on the conviction that training a new cadre of young people with the skills to produce and apply knowledge derived from Indigenous and local realities will generate unique but useable data. This data, we believe, contains important knowledge that will support policy interventions aimed at creating fulfilling livelihoods for young people and Indigenous/local communities.

To be sure, the notion of ‘Indigenous’ is contested. Its colonial pedigree carries pejorative connotations. This research and fellowship programme seeks to critically examine and strip the term of the negative connotations, allowing for the full value of ‘what we have’ in our communities to be recognized and appreciated.

Previous research at CODESRIA, led by the Beninois philosopher, Paulin Hountondji, located the problematic use of the notion to its colonial heritage and persisting scientific dependence in Africa today.[1] In colonised societies, ‘Indigenous’ was contrasted with ‘exotic’, implying that the former was native, traditional, primitive and resistant to change. Indigenous knowledge (IK) was thus framed as vernacular, uncivilised, deprived and superstitious. Hountondji analysed these forms of knowledge, noting that the persistence of the pejorative connotations made sense only in contexts of persisting extraversion of knowledge in Africa.[2] He preferred the notion of ‘endogenous’ to ‘Indigenous’ arguing that this reframing would recentre Africa in knowledge production. This programme, while acknowledging these debates and the historical baggage many terms carry, uses the notion of ‘Indigenous knowledge’ to refer to what is organic to society, to borrow Gramsci’s concept of the organic intellectual. It underscores the idea of ‘using what we have’, while recognising that what we have in society is not static nor does it exist in splendid isolation; rather, it evolves through continuous interaction with other knowledge systems.[3]

The AFRIAK research and fellowship project will involve three related activities. These are:

  1. A research, training and mentorship fellowship programme for young people.
  2. Policy convenings.
  3. An alumni and community of practice in Indigenous and alternative knowledge network.

The three interrelated programme activities are designed to facilitate the attainment of the following outcomes:

  1. Create opportunities and spaces for young researchers to engage in multi-disciplinary knowledge production and apply it jointly with academics, activists, policy practitioners and IK-bearers and -keepers.
  2. Facilitate collaborative research that will minimize the isolation of Indigenous knowledge-bearers/keepers/scholars from other knowledge-bearers or -keepers and help eliminate asymmetries and silos within knowledge production systems.
  3. Expand opportunities to enhance the capacity of participants, especially the historically/culturally marginalized ones, to acquire and inquire into knowledges embedded in communities.
  4. Transform knowledge into action while enhancing its capacity to create dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young people in several sectors including the creative sector; agriculture and agri-foods systems; digital systems, and other industries; in curriculum development, pedagogy, and learning; nutrition and climate health; in human, plant, and animal health, among other sectors with pressing needs and opportunities in Africa.
  5. Facilitate the emergence of a critical mass of young women researchers who will engage with and train future generations of IK research and practices, including embracing new technologies such as AI to mobilize and apply IK.

Overall, the project is expected to lead to the uptake and scaling of Indigenous and other forms of alternative knowledge as the basis for supporting dignified livelihood strategies for young people and communities, in key sectors including those highlighted above. Proposals submitted under this call should revolve around the following areas: –

  1. Indigenous knowledge and methods of knowing.
  2. Indigenous medical science and practices.
  3. Indigenous knowledge, the creative sector and systems of entrepreneurship
  4. Agriculture and agri-foods systems.
  5. Mobilizing digital systems for Indigenous knowledge in Africa.
  6. Indigenous pedagogies and curriculum development.
  7. Indigenous knowledge in social capital development
  8. Indigenous technologies and sustainable development
  9. Indigenous knowledge and climate change
  10. IK heritage in nutrition and climate health.
  11. Indigenous languages and science.
  12. Indigenous knowledge, Religion and spirituality science.
  13. Indigenous science and ecological sustainability

Target for this call

This call targets young people aged 24 and 35 years, engaged in research and knowledge production activities that draw, or aspire to draw, on Indigenous/local knowledge perspectives. The targeted youth should be based in formal research and knowledge institutions or Indigenous knowledge research centres in Africa. Practitioners with formal education qualifications, who are engaged in activities that draw on the application of Indigenous/local knowledge perspectives, are also encouraged to apply. Up to 70 per cent of the young people to be selected for the fellowship will be young women. Applicants should highlight their research area/theme of interest, aligning with CODESRIA’s priority areas identified above.

Structure and duration of fellowship

The fellowship includes induction, mid-term institute, fieldwork, dissemination activities, and post-fellowship activities, where alumni will contribute to a community of practice in Indigenous and other knowledge systems. Fellows will be grouped into teams of seven, accompanied by two bearers of Indigenous/local knowledge and an academic mentor. Conceptualization of the research, its execution, and dissemination approaches will be co-developed between the young fellows, academic mentors and bearers of indigenous knowledge. The duration of the fellowship, including fieldwork and dissemination, will be seven months. Throughout the fellowship, research teams will receive mentorship and support from intellectual hubs, which will be identified and constituted by CODESRIA to enhance scholarly and community engagement.

Application modalities

Individual and group applications are welcome

Individual applicants are required to submit the following: –

  • A one-page CV that indicates, among other details, date of birth and current occupation/engagement and institutional affiliation.
  • A two-page concept note that identifies a topic, explains how that theme is aligned with a priority area that CODESRIA has itemised; provides a justification for the choice of theme and how compelling it is; and summarises the key steps the individual aims to go through to achieve the outcomes from the research and fellowship process.
  • A one-page reference letter from two referees familiar with the work of the applicant.

Group applicants (maximum of 7 persons) are required to submit the following:

  • A one-page CV for each of the group members to be submitted as one consolidated document. Each CV should indicate, among other details, date of birth and current occupation/engagement and institutional affiliation. The Principal Investigator or Group Leader must be clearly identified at the top of the set of CVs.
  • A two-page concept note that identifies a topic, explains how that theme is aligned with a priority area that CODESRIA has itemised; provides a justification for the choice of theme and how compelling it is; and summarises the key steps the group aims to go through to achieve the outcomes from the research and fellowship process
  • Two letters of reference that specifically endorse the group, rather than individual members.

Applications should be submitted through the CODESRIA portal reserved for this fellowship, at https://submission.codesria.org/african-fellowships-for-research-in-indigenous-and-alternative-knowledges-afriak/

The deadline for applications is 15th May 2025.

 

[1] Paulin Hountondji, ‘Scientific Dependence in Africa Today’, in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1990.

[2] Paulin Hountondji, ‘Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la science dans les pays de la périphérie’, in Africa Development / Afrique et Développement, Vol. 15, No. 3/4, 1990.

[3] There are similar discussions along these lines led by Yuen Yuen Ang, the Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University and author of the How China Escaped the Poverty Trap.

Africa Development, Volume 49, Number 3, 2024

Special Focus on Lusophone Africa

We are delighted to announce the release of a special issue of Africa Development | Afrique et Développement, dedicated to new approaches to social movements and human rights in Lusophone Africa. This issue brings together cutting-edge research and critical discussions on key socio-political and economic challenges in Portuguese-speaking African countries.

 Guest Editors:

  • Luca Bussotti
  • Redy Wilson Lima
  • Remo Mutzenberg

What’s Inside?
This special issue covers a range of topics that shed light on the evolving landscape of social activism, governance, and human rights across Lusophone Africa:

  • The Role of Civil Society in Mozambique
  • Trade Union Freedom in Cape Verde (1975–2014)
  • Social Protection as a Human Right in Mozambique
  • Youth Protests in Angola: Online vs. Offline Activism

Why Should You Read This Special Issue?
As social movements across Africa continue to reshape public discourse, this issue provides essential insights into how activism, governance, and human rights intersect in Lusophone African countries. It serves as an important resource for academics, policymakers, civil society actors, and students seeking to understand the nuances of social change in the region.

We encourage you to explore this edition and share it with colleagues, students, and networks that would benefit from its findings.

Read the full issue here

Forthcoming – Beyond the Coloniality of Internationalism: Reworlding the World from the Global South

“That the post-1945 global multilateral system is in crisis is no longer in dispute. What is at issue is the question of how best to transcend its many discontents and build a qualitatively new order. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues vigorously, and with ample historical references, that what is called for is a root and branch dismantling of the moribund order and its replacement with a new one that draws from the rich decolonial, anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, and human-centred heritage that is rooted in the history of struggles in the global South. Students of contemporary world affairs will find much in this book that is at once enlightening and challenging. For practitioners, the book will reshape their thinking about the scope and options for change required for the birth of a new world order.” – Adebayo Olukoshi, Distinguished Professor, Wits School of Governance, South Africa

 

“Once upon a time global events were narrated by local narrators placed in their own North Atlantic perceptions. No longer. The Russian special operation in Ukraine that triggered Beyond the Coloniality of Internationalism is a case in point. It is narrated from also at once from the Global South and the Global East. The closing of North Atlantic hegemony is manifested in the closing of unilateral narratives and unipolar international relations. This book is a magnificent antidote to what Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, encapsulated in a mighty single sentence: the danger of a single story. Additionally, this refreshing narrative and analysis shows us that the power of the singles stories was and still is a story of modernity of internationalism. This book turns the pages around: Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni unveils the colonial stories of unipolar internationalism. By doing so, the book reminds us of another sign of the change of era: decolonial thinking and being in the world, rewording the world, is not an academic question, it is about life. Knowing to live rather than living to know.” Walter D. Mignolo, William Hane Wannamaker Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies, Duke University

 

“Professor Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s powerful book draws from the Ukraine war to provide an anti-colonial interpretation of international relations. He argues that the West’s attempt to maintain its domination is futile, and that the forces of decolonisation will prevail in the building of a genuine multilateral world order.” Professor Vijay Prashad, Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

 

“In a world wracked again with war and despair, what does a decolonial ethos have to contribute? It puts forward a deliberate anti-imperial ethos. An ethos against conquest. And it crafts this ethos with a cosmopolitan intent. Finally, we are all one and united in vulnerability, but also the right to live in peace. Sabelo J.  Ndlovu-Gatsheni examines the thought of both Olaf Palme and Nelson Mandela and, in this new book, crafts a powerful message of deliverance and peace.”-Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

 

“From the so-called Russia-Ukraine War, through the Middle East “theatre of wars” to the decolonize projects, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni takes this complex scenario and repaints the canvas vividly from the right side, revisiting history, critiquing paradigms, and, most importantly, offering prospects for an alternative approach. This comprehensive analysis is a must-read for scholars of international relations, human rights, decolonial studies, peace studies, and just about anyone who needs a diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan for our world order.”  –Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Professor of African and Gender Studies, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana

 

“In this book Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni undertakes a breath-taking task of synthesis, bringing together into conversation Marxism (especially in its Leninist incarnation), the Black Radical Tradition and decolonial perspectives into an analysis of the continuing “coloniality of international” power relations. He uses the current Russia-Ukraine war to cast a fresh glance at the entire project of colonialism and imperialism and its operation today in terms of the “Cold War” that continues long after its official end. At one level, an intervention in the area of international relations, the book is much more – and as the subtitle suggests, concerned quite centrally with the “reworlding of the word from the Global South.” This reworlding, Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues, can only be possible by mining repressed knowledges, exploring paths never taken and imagining possibilities considered unimaginable – a task that is in the first place epistemological and involves what he calls “rethinking and unthinking from the crevices, ashes and ruins left by dying Euro North American modernity and its colonialities.” His is an optimistic project whose optimism derives from the recognition that colonialism, imperialism and the Cold War are not merely economic and political structures that apparently exist independently of the players involved but are put in place through the massive apparatus of Euro-American knowledge, demolishing which is the key task of decolonial theory and practice.”—Aditya Nigam, Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India

“This is a book that is as politically enticing as it is beautifully conceived and written with the force to inspire us never to look away from the horrors whilst providing the ink of hope and the power to collectively change said state of things. Ndlovu- Gatsheni’s book is a political toolbox, as much as it is a spiritual canvas, and a historical map for all of us who refuse to believe that no other world is possible. “Beyond coloniality of internationalism Reworlding the World from the Global South” synthesizes and harmonically deploys the major schools of thought and action involved in thinking the political crises of our times (ecological, political, racial, capitalist, patriarchal) and through the understanding and practice that the centre of coloniality of power is encrypted power it creates the conditions to de-think and rethink them anew.” Ricardo Sanin-Restrepo, author of Decolonizing Democracy

“Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni calls for a root and branch dismantling of the moribund order and its replacement with a new one that draws from the rich decolonial, anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, and human-centred heritage that is rooted in the history of struggles in the global South.”- Adebayo Olukoshi, Distinguished Professor, Wits School of Governance, South Africa

 “This book is a magnificent antidote to what Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, encapsulated in a mighty single sentence: the danger of a single story. By doing so, the book reminds us of another sign of the change of era: decolonial thinking and being in the world, rewording the world, is not an academic question, it is about life. Knowing to live rather than living to know.” Walter D. Mignolo, William Wannamaker Distinguished Professor, Duke University

“Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s powerful book draws from the Ukraine war to provide an anti-colonial interpretation of international relations.” Vijay Prashad, Professor & Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

“Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni crafts a powerful message of deliverance and peace.”-Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of London

“Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni repaints the canvas vividly from the right side, revisiting history, critiquing paradigms, and, most importantly, offering prospects for an alternative approach.” –Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Professor of African & Gender Studies, University of Ghana

 “Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni undertakes a breath-taking task of synthesis, bringing together into conversation Marxism, the Black Radical Tradition and decolonial perspectives into an analysis of the continuing coloniality of international power relations.” Aditya Nigam, Professor at the Centre for Developing Societies, Delhi

 “Ndlovu- Gatsheni’s book is a political toolbox, as much as it is a spiritual canvas, and a historical map for all of us who refuse to believe that no other world is possible.” Ricardo Sanin-Restrepo, Professor of Legal and Political Theory, Universidad Javeriana

Exit mobile version