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Carl Schlettwein Lecture 2019 is published
Basler Afrika Bibliographien | Centre for African Studies
Francis B. Nyamnjoh's Carl Schlettwein lecture on Decolonising the Academy is published. The lecture was held in November 2019.
Francis B. Nyamnjoh
"Decolonising the Academy: A Case for Convivial Scholarship"
Recurrent clamours by students and academics for universities in Africa, and elsewhere, to imbibe and exude a spirit of inclusivity are a continual reminder that universities can and need to be much more convivial. Processes of knowledge production that champion delusions of superiority and zero-sum games of absolute winners and losers are elitist and un-convivial.
Conviviality in knowledge production would entail not just seeking conversations and collaboration with and across disciplines in the conventional sense but also the integration of sidestepped popular epistemologies informed by popular universes and ideas of reality. Such scholarship is predicated upon recognising and providing for incompleteness as a necessary attribute of being, from persons to disciplines and traditions of knowing, and knowledge making.
Francis B. Nyamnjoh is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town and has taught Sociology, Anthropology and Communication Studies at universities in Cameroon and Botswana. He also served as Head of Publications at CODESRIA.
The annual Carl Schlettwein Lecture is organised by the Centre for African Studies Basel (CASB) and is published as the Carl Schlettwein Lecture Series by the BAB Publishing House.
