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Transnational Scholarship: Building Linkages between the U.S. Africanist Community and Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2016

Paul Tiyambe Zeleza
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Extract

Relations between the U.S. Africanist community and Africa are marked by complex connections, contestation, and challenges engendered by the intellectual, institutional, and ideological diversity of scholarly cultures, capacities, and commitments both in the United States and on the African continent. As we enter the new century, the scholarly enterprise on both sides of the Atlantic faces many perils and possibilities, both old and new, requiring innovative forms of engagement. Historically, as I have argued elsewhere, the patterns of academic exchange between the United States and Africa have been unbalanced. They are patterns that contemporary processes of globalization have helped reinforce and recast.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , 2002 , pp. 69 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2002 

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References

Notes

1. More fundamentally, it refers to a process of capitalist globalization and an intellectual project of neoliberalism. For higher education, globalization entails what I call the six Cs: corporatization of management, or the adoption of business models for the organization and administration of higher-education institutions; collectivization of access, or growing massification of higher education; commercialization of learning, or the rapid expansion of private universities; commodification of knowledge, or increasing production, sponsorship, and dissemination of research by commercial enterprises and for-profit institutions; computerization of education, or the incorporation of information and communication technology into the knowledge activities of teaching, research, and publication; and connectivity of institutions, ormore emphasis on institutional cooperation and coordination within and across countries. See Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe, Rethinking Africa’s Globalization, vol. 1, The Intellectual Challenges (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

2. In 1999-2000, there were 516,438 foreign students in the United States compared with 129,770 American students abroad. Although the majority of foreign students came from Asia (54.4 percent), most of the American students went to Europe (62.7 percent). By contrast, Europeans accounted for only 15.2 percent of foreign students in the United States, and only 6 percent of U.S. students went to Asia. See Chronicle of Higher Education, Almanac 2001-2002 48, no. 1 (August 31, 2001).

3. Chronicle of Higher Education, Almanac 2001-2002: 24.

4. Pires, Mark et al., “Study Abroad and Cultural Exchange Programs to Africa: America’s Image of a Continent,” African Issues 28, nos. 1 & 2 (2000): 39-45Google Scholar.

5. Wheeler, David, “More Students Study Abroad, but Their Stays Are Shorter,” Chronicle of Higher Education (November 17, 2000): A74 Google Scholar.

6. For a more detailed discussion of the problems and possibilities of student exchanges between the United States and Africa, see the special issue on “Study Abroad in Africa,” African Issues 28, nos. 1 & 2 (2000).

7. McMurtrie, Beth, “Foreign Enrollments Grow in the U.S., but So Does Competition from Other Nations,” Chronicle of Higher Education (November 16, 2001): A45 Google Scholar.

8. McMurtrie, Beth, “America’s Scholarly Societies Raise Their Rags Abroad,” Chronicle of Higher Education (January 28, 2000): A53 Google Scholar. There is always the danger that American societies, typically larger and more prosperous than their foreign counterparts, may be intrusive and undermine foreign societies. To avoid this, some American groups have created membership agreements with those organizations. Under the agreements, membership in a scholar’s home organization earns him or her special privileges, such as a discounted rate on membership in the American society.

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11. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe and Veney, Cassandra Rachel (guest editors), “The African Brain Drain to the North: Pitfalls and Possibilities,” African Issues 30, no. 1 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Curtin, Philip D., “Ghettoizing African History,” Chronicle of Higher Education (March 3, 1995): A44 Google Scholar, and Black Historians’ Response, “The Significance of Race in African Studies,” Chronicle of Higher Education (April 7, 1995): B8. For my commentary on the “Curtin debate,” see Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe, Preface to Manufacturing African Studies and Crises (Dakar, Senegal:CODESRIA Book Series, 1997)Google Scholar, and for an overview of African studies in the United States, see chapter 4 of my Rethinking Africa’s Globalization, vol. 1, The Intellectual Challenges (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2003).

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17. Abdoulaye Gueye, “Dark Side of the African Brain Drain: Experiences of Africans Holding Doctoral Degrees in Social Sciences and Humanities Living in France,” African Issues 30: 62-65.

18. Pires, Mark, Kassimir, Ron, and Brhane, M., Investing in Return: Rates of Return of African Ph.D.s Trained in North America (New York, US: Social Science Research Council, 1999), 19-21Google Scholar.

19. F. Njubi Nesbitt, “African Intellectuals in the Belly of the Beast: Migration, Identity, and the Politics of Exile,” African Issues 30: 70-75.

20. Nzegwu Nkiru, “Africanresource.com: Bridging the Digital Divide,” African Issues 30: 81-85.

21. Peter Limb, “The African ‘Document Drain’ and Its Solutions: Ethical Dilemmas Facing Africanists Today,” n.p.