Symmetry and Asymmetry: New Contours, Paradigms, and Politics in African Academic Partnerships

Transnational knowledge partnerships: new calculus and politics in Africa’s development

“…Since 2000, growing numbers of leading intergovernmental development organisations in Africa have been embracing the strategy of promoting knowledge production and knowledge management for sustainable development. The publications also demonstrate a unique focus on the importance of partnerships and cooperation at regional and international levels (Obamba and Mwema 2009). In particular, the African Union has distinguished itself at the forefront of this unprecedented African renaissance through its strategic focus on scientific capacity building, knowledge production and stimulating closer synergy between Africa's knowledge production systems and Africa's development priorities (AU 2005).…”

“…In recent decades, however, the scope and complexity of academic cooperation within Africa has been expanding at a more rapid pace (Obamba and Mwema 2009;Samoff and Carroll 2004). The Africa Regional Networks Database estimated that in 2006 the continent hosted more than 120 regional networks focusing on a broad spectrum of disciplines (www.…”

“…Recent decades have seen a proliferation of various kinds of transnational partnerships and networks within Africa's higher education landscape (Obamba and Mwema 2009;Teferra 2010). The numerical growth in partnerships across the continent also corresponds to the expansion of financial investments and the elaboration of the organisational infrastructure in support of transnational partnerships.…”

Re‐orienting internationalisation in African higher education

“…This is a challenge to the 'intentionally neutral' technical definition of internationalisation by Knight, given her own recognition of potential non-neutral usages: 'a definition needs to be objective enough that it can be used to describe a phenomenon which is, in fact, universal but which has different purposes and outcomes, depending on the actor or stakeholder ' (2008, 15). A number of normative and political concerns have already been flagged in the emerging policy and research discourses on internationalisation in African higher education (Zeleza 2005;Obamba and Mwema 2009). However, in accepting the neutrality of the definition as a starting point, there is a danger that such concerns can easily become subsumed under the informational task of mapping the 'shape and size' of internationalisation, the technical task of gathering and analysing data about different aspects of internationalisation, or the organisational task of developing policy frameworks and implementation structures to manage internationalisation at institutional and national levels.…”

Dominated by Economics? Evidence of Changing Drivers of Internationalization and Its Funding Within Higher Education Institutions in Europe

“…In addition a number of commentators have discussed the potentially negative consequences of pursuing the process many commentators have discussed the 'dark side' of internationalization, for example, in terms of inequality in the global education space. As noted by Obamba and Mwema (2009), in some international institutional partnerships, especially those involving institutions from the developed 'north' and the developing 'south' it can be the case 'whereby non-Western knowledge from the poor world regions has been systematically relegated to a peripheral epistemic position' (Obamba and Mwema, 2009, 364).…”