Social Science Space

In the words of of one Botswanan: “There is a lot of mistrust. People come here with their research vehicles, but they do not talk to us. They do not involve us.”

Desmond T. Ayentimi, a senior lecturer of management at the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, reflects on his most recent paper, “Decent Gig Work in sub-Saharan Africa.”

There’s a strong correlation between academic freedom and other elements of democracy. But cause and effect are not so clear. The African experience makes the relationship clearer because simultaneously, and in a relatively short time, the whole continent moved from one-party to multiparty systems.

The work of Christopher Boafo, Richard Afriyie Owusu and Karine Guiderdoni-Jourdain offers an understanding of the internationalization of informal smaller firms in two major enterprise clusters in a sub-Saharan African economy through a network perspective.

For academic researchers working with social movements and activist groups can present unique challenges. Finding ways to work effectively together, whilst acknowledging differences in power and objectives, is often problematic. Drawing on perspectives from different social movements and academia, Diana Mitlin, Jhono Bennett, Philipp Horn, Sophie King, Jack Makau and George Masimba Nyama present insights from the Slum/Shack Dwellers International movement on how academics can successfully co-produce useful knowledge for social movements.

Most countries in Africa are lagging behind development goal suggested by the United Nations. Science academies have a crucial role to play in developing ways for scientists to help these nations achieve development goals more effectively.

Catriona Macleod received the 2017 Psychology and Social Change Award from her home institution, Rhodes University, late last year in large part for recognizing and then critiquing the psychology of Africa.

In the past few years there has been an insidious rise in predatory journals and publishers, notes Adele Thomas, and African academics have not been immune to their predation.

Individual academics and institutions have driven the open access process in South Africa. This bottom-up approach has its merits, argue John Butler-Adam, Susan Veldsman and Ina Smith, but a push from the top is needed to ensure that the nation stays on track.

The director of directs the International Network for Higher Education in Africa argues that a nascent effort to rank the continent’s institutions of higher education ‘seems to me to be doomed from the start.’