On Monastic Seclusion: Making knowledge from an African University

This seminar will be held on-line as a one-hour Zoom seminar; to participate please register here.

Please read the paper before the seminar

Abstract :  A key aspect of the critique of the colonial legacies of higher education in Africa remains the inequalities engendered by everyday life pressures, and the consequences for scientific practice. This paper provides reflection on the scientific lives of African scholars by critically examining the social contexts and conditions under which knowledge production occurs, especially in universities in low and middle-income countries. I am particularly interested in the social dynamics and local pressures that underpin the practice of scholarship, the strategies deployed to negotiate monastic idealism, and the possible ways in which these both impact and shape debates and the knowledge produced. Overall my aim is understand how scholars negotiate and sustain voice, dignity and intellectual respectability within the precarious context of this social violence.