Discipline in the context of development: a case of the social sciences in Malawi, Southern Africa
Tóm tắt
Changes in research production precipitated by the globalization have generally been theorized as applying across nations and disciplinary projects. This article examines the relation of discipline to research production from the situational vantage point of the developing world, specifically the Southern African country of Malawi, and from the empirical perspective of the social sciences. Evidence derives from eight months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Malawi in 2003 and 2004, drawing specifically from over 100 formal interviews and from analysis of historical and contemporary documents. The article finds that against depictions of academic disciplines as inflexible, arbitrary, and in need of restructuring, the case of the social sciences in Malawi demonstrates the value of distinctly disciplined expertise in problem-oriented research. This efficacy is, however, precariously dependent on the capacity of local disciplinary communities to regenerate and reproduce their expertise and compete effectively in the increasingly competitive knowledge market.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Abbott, A. (2002). The disciplines and the future. In S. Brint (Ed.), The future of the city of the intellect: The changing American University (pp. 205–229). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
American Council on Education. (1964). Education for development: Report of the survey team on education in Malawi. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.
Bourdieu, P. (1975). The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason. Social Science Information, 14(6), 20–47.
Cammack, D. (2004). Poorly performing countries: Malawi, 1980–2002. London: Overseas Development Institute.
Carver, R. (1990). Where silence rules: The suppression of dissent in Malawi. New York, NY: Human Rights Watch.
Caruso, D., & Rhoten, D. (2001). Lead, follow, get out of the way: Sidestepping the barriers to effective practice of interdisciplinarity: A new mechanism for knowledge production and re-integration in the age of information. A Hybrid Vigor White Paper. Retrieved August 19, 2002, from http://www.hybridvigor.net/interdis/pubs/end.html.
Chancellor College. (1985). Chancellor college bulletin. Zomba: University of Malawi.
Cummings, G. (2001). Aid to Africa: French and British policies from the Cold War to the new millennium. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Dubbey, J. M. (1994). Warm hearts, white hopes. Pretoria West: Penrose Book Printers.
Gibbons, M. (1998). Higher education relevance in the 21st century. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage.
Giddens, A. (1991). Preface. In P. Wagner, B. Wittrock, & R. Whitley (Eds.), Discourses on society: The shaping of the social science disciplines. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Gieryn, F.T. (1999). Cultural boundaries of science: credibility on the line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gulbenkian Commission. (1996). Open the social sciences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Heyneman, S. P. (2003). The history and problems in the making of education policy at the world bank, 1960–2000. International Journal of Educational Development, 23, 315–337.
Kerr, D., & Mapanje, J. (2002). Academic freedom and the University of Malawi. African Studies Review, 45(2), 73–92.
Latham, M. E. (2000). Modernization as ideology: American social science and ‘nation building’ in the Kennedy Era. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1988). The pasteurization of France. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Lwanda, J. L. (1993). Kamuzu Banda of Malawi: A study in promise, power and paralysis. Glasgow, Scotland: Dudu Nsomba Publications.
Mills, D. (2005). Anthropology at the end of Empire: The rise and fall of the British Colonial Social Science Research Council 1944–1962. In B. de L’Estoile, F. Neiburg, & L. Sigaud (Eds.), Empires, nations, and native: Anthropology and state-making. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mkandawire, T. (2005). African intellectuals and nationalism. In T. Mkandawire (Ed.), African intellectuals: Rethinking politics, language, gender, and development. London: Zed Books.
Nowotny, H., Scott, P., & Gibbons, M. (2002). Re-thinking science: Knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Nyamnjoy, F. B., & Jua, N. B. (2002). African Universities in crisis and the promotion of a democratic culture. African Studies Review, 45(2), 1–26.
Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
University of Malawi. (2003). University of Malawi policy on research and consultancy. Zomba: University of Malawi.
Wagner, P., & Wittrock, B. (1991). State, institutions, and discourses: A comparative perspective on the structuration of social science. In P. Wagner, B. Wittrock, & R. Whitley (Eds.), Discourses on society: The shaping of the social science disciplines. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Whitley, R. ([1984] 2003). The intellectual and social organization of the sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, T. D. (1978). Malawi: The politics of despair. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
World Bank. (2002). Constructing knowledge societies: New challenges for tertiary education. Washington: World Bank.