The document discusses post-colonial and decolonial approaches to global science. It notes that most African countries were European colonies until the 1950s-70s and still have strong economic and cultural ties to former colonizers. Post-colonial science engagements are characterized by Northern control over funding, ideas, and leadership, which leads to weak sustainability and an African intellectual diaspora. Decolonialization rejects colonial ways of thinking and structures in science. The document advocates for listening to African partners, leveling power imbalances, and establishing self-sustaining African research to achieve an equal global partnership in science.

1. Post-colonial, Decolonial and
Global science
Prof Bob Scholes
Director, Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South
Africa
ICOS Conference, 15-17 September 2020

2. Outline
• The pitfalls of post-colonial scientific
relationships
• Decolonialisation as an intellectual
response to the colonial condition
• How might science links between
Africa and the rest of the world
develop in future?

3. The post-colonial situation
Virtually all African countries were colonies of a European
country at some stage in the past 150 years
Most achieved independence in the period 1957-1975
The trade and cultural links to former colonial powers
remained strong, often more so than within-Africa links
There are enormous structural imbalances in this
relationship, which persist

4. Characteristics of post-colonial
science engagements
• ‘Technology transfer’ is the model
• Major focus is on capacity building
• Funding is usually grant-based, and entirely northern
• The ideas and leadership are northern
Consequences
• Sustainability is weak – initiatives die when the funds do
• Skilled Africans form an intellectual diaspora because
there are not suitable opportunities at home
• Poor fit of research objectives and priorities to national
needs, no sense of ownership
• Resource capture by well-connected elites

5. Why is African Research Infrastructure so
persistently weak?
• Africa’s GDP is 14% of Europe’s
– 2.58 trillion USD:18.29 trillion USD
• African countries spend <0.5% of GDP on
research, almost entirely by the government
(Europe spends 2.2%, about half of which is
private sector)
• That which is invested is often not sustainable
or efficient
– Sub-critical investments
– Incomplete research ecosystem

6. Decolonialisation in science
• Based on a rejection colonial ways of thinking
• That includes symbols, institutions and
structures considered colonial
• The need and direction are much more obvious in
academic fields with a strong values basis
• less clear what this means in science
• Substitution by ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ does not
work, but non-Western knowledge systems can
play a powerful complementary role
• Contextual knowledge
• Culturally-appropriate communication
• Relational rather than instrumental knowledge

7. How do you engage?
• Beware of unintended dominance
– It is hard not to offer solutions
• Find ways of supporting the process
– A focus on concrete shared outcomes may
be less contested that one which emphasises
process and concepts
– Deliberately locate key events in Africa
– Find ways to level the playing field
• Do more listening
– This is an element of transdisciplinarity, which
also applies to other science engagements

8. Where would we like to be?
• A partnership of equals
– Where not everyone has to be the same
• An Africa that is no more dependent
for knowledge on other regions, than
other regions are on Africa
• Research and Research Infrastructure
is established as a self-sustaining
engine of development