The Glocality of African Knowledge in the Information Age: Academic Research, Local Knowledge Systems and Policy Framings

Contemporary Africa has become a truly glocal space as various political, social, economic, and environmental issues adversely affecting African countries have global and local drivers. Added to these is the rapid growth in information technology. Indeed, Africa’s fusion into the global is not new given the histories of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, new humanitarianism and the global war on terror. However, the recent information technologies and forms of intellectual, political, and militant resistances to Africa’s absorption into the global raise critical questions about the glocality of Africa. A key frontier in this resistance is knowledge production and its impact on African policy framing. Whether we talk about human rights, climate change, governance or security issues, knowledge production is central to the way policies are framed and deployed across Africa. This is more important given the growth in information technology. This paper centers on the intersection of information technology and knowledge production through a glocalization frame. Notably, the paper seeks to examine the glocality of African knowledge and its impact on policy frame. A critical entry point into the glocality of African knowledge is information technology which can enhance African knowledge production, despite the inequities in the technoscape. Glocality captures the way local knowledge fuses into the external (academic) knowledge that tends to drive policy. The core questions in the paper are: how does academic research fuse with local knowledge systems? How does information technology shape the production and diffusion of African knowledge? How can the glocalization of African knowledge shape policy framing in Africa? The paper will take an epistemological approach rooted in historical data and content analysis with a focus on the security and climate policy spheres.