The intellectual marginalisation of Africa

ABSTRACT

The intellectual marginalisation of Africa is often explained in terms of the lack of human capital. However, the peripheralization and systemic neglect of excellent research published in Africa problematise the human capital thesis and, ironically, demonstrate that the appeal to ‘Southern theory’ is not a panacea either. Although these perspectives are quite distinct, both seek to explain, and ultimately redress, Africa’s intellectual marginalisation apart from, not as part of, Africa’s marginalised position in the world system. The growing gulf between the use of knowledge produced in Africa and that in the metropole as well as little metropoles in the continent is patterned after global inequalities – not just differences in levels of human capital or the underappreciation of African knowledge systems. The historical and continuing concentration of the instruments of knowledge production in the hands of elites, the inferiorisation of the contribution of Africans, especially women, and the peripheralization of African outlets of production and dissemination have been central to the creation and persistence of this intellectual marginalisation. Creating structures of dependence and imitative research neither critical of, nor confrontational to, power imbalances is one outcome which, in turn, further legitimises the status quo because its resulting knowledge is unlikely to challenge the hegemony of the global north. This knowledge hierarchy reinforces the privileged status of knowledge produced in the north, while seeking to undermine the potential transformative power of southern knowledge. If so, merely seeking to develop ‘Southern theory’ is an ineffective alternative to the human capital thesis.

KEYWORDS:

• Intellectual inequalities
• knowledge divide
• capitalism
• digital divide
• Africa

Acknowledgments

Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Clifford Amoako, George Bob-Milliar, and Joe Collins did not only encourage me to write this paper, they also gave me excellent feedback on my early drafts. I gratefully acknowledge their support and the feedback of the editors and reviewers of African Identities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Discussion of Peter Kreisler’s email in the Heterodox Economics Newsletter, issue 152, September, 2013, http://heterodoxnews.com/n/htn152.html (accessed 8.11.2016).

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Notes on contributors

Franklin Obeng-Odoom

Franklin Obeng-Odoom is an Associate Professor of Sustainability Science with Development Studies and the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, both at the University of Helsinki in Finland where he is the current Chairperson of the Finnish Society for Development Research. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the oldest learned society in postcolonial Africa. Franklin's research and teaching interests are centred on the political economy of development, cities, and natural resources – fields to which he has made various contributions. He is the author of five books, including Oiling the Urban Economy (2014); Reconstructing Urban Economics (2016), and Property, Institutions and Social Stratification in Africa (2020). Obeng-Odoom is an elected member of the Executive Council of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), Associate Editor of the Forum for Social Economics, Editor-in-Chief of African Review of Economics and Finance, and Series Editor of Edinburgh Studies in Urban Political Economy.