AFRICA: Social science under-resourced but resilient

The social sciences in Sub-Saharan Africa are seriously under-resourced but determined, says Johann Mouton, Director of the Centre for Research on Science and Technology and head of the African Doctoral Academy at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

The fact that vibrant social sciences research is occurring in countries which, with few exceptions, have little government support, poor institutional facilities and many other challenges "says a great deal about the resilience and resolve of the scholars concerned".

At the same time though, as Mouton writes in the World Social Science Report 2010, many traditionally strong universities in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe struggle to maintain even low levels of output in scholarly journals.

Likewise, the precarious state of many social science research centres is indicative of a more general trend in research and scholarship in many African countries, resulting in what he calls the de-institutionalisation of science.

"With the decline in the number of robust and vibrant university-based research centres, we are witnessing an increase in transnational and regional research networks. It could be argued that such networks are emerging as a direct result of globalisation, greater international collaboration and increased access to the internet," Mouton says.

Networks are also filling the void left by the lack of strong national research centres. He says the vast majority of these focus on interdisciplinary as well as more applied fields of the social sciences. Most are engaged in a range of activities that include research but also capacity-building and training, networking through conferencing and other means, and advocacy and policy work.

Mouton says two 'types' of social science are practised in Africa: 'academic science' in universities and 'consultancy science' for international, overseas and locally based organisations.

Much of the academic science practised by individual scientists or groups within universities is under-funded and published in local journals that are not internationally visible, he says. This form of research is often driven by the individual scholar's priorities and interests, "and is ultimately aimed at advancing their career".

Given Africa's lack of a research infrastructure - strong research centres with a critical mass, sustained funding and institutional continuity - Mouton says scholars end up engaging in projects that do not translate into building institutional capacity. Nor does the research have much influence on society and it rarely carries much weight.

"Governments and decision makers - but also university bureaucrats - are impressed and influenced by size (large centres, networks and think-tanks) and continuity in scholarship over time. [So] where social science scholarship is primarily individualistic, it is unlikely to be taken seriously or to influence policy [and] its status will be low to negligible."

The lack of government support for social science research in Sub-Saharan Africa translates into very little support for research institutes and centres dedicated to the social sciences and humanities, whether based at universities or operating as NGOs, he says.

This leads to fragmentation of effort, lack of dialogue among scholars and often a lack of methodological rigour. Mouton says discipline-based work will eventually decline and basic scholarship such as social theory will also suffer.

Then there is 'consultancy' social science - the widespread practice of academics engaging in consultancy work, mostly for international agencies and governments, to augment their meagre salaries.

Mouton says the situation is most prevalent in disciplines such as the health sciences, business studies and ICT but it is widespread and on the increase. A study in the Southern African Development Community region found that more than two-thirds of all academics in the 14 SADC countries regularly engaged in consultancies.

The reasons varied but included the fact that scholars enjoyed the variety of topics consultancies provided; to meet market demand; to make up for an inadequate salary (cited as a reason by 54% in South Africa and 69% elsewhere in SADC); and even that it might advance the scholars' networks and careers.

The study of SADC countries attracted responses from more than 600 academics and found that 42% (South Africa excluded) obtained up to 90% of their research funding from overseas, compared with only 6% of South African respondents.

"The responses show very clearly the dependence of SADC scientists on international funding, and conversely, how little domestic funding is available for research," Mouton says. "The actual state of affairs is probably even worse than these figures suggest [because] the scientists in our sample were the most active and productive researchers in their fields and countries."

Mouton notes that many commentators have discussed the lack of indigenous African theories and conceptual models to tackle the region's social dynamics and challenges.

He argues that the call for theoretical innovation and more sociological imagination "is even more relevant in an age of globalisation and internationalisation, of the continuous decline of key scientific institutions including research centres, societies and journals in many countries, and of the widespread lack of government support for social sciences research in Sub-Saharan Africa".

geoff.maslen@uw-news.com