Theorising AI from the Global South: Knowledge, Pedagogy, and the Future of Higher Education

Generative Artificial Intelligence has become one of the defining educational questions of our time. Yet much of the emerging scholarship remains preoccupied with plagiarism, academic integrity, assessment, and technological adoption. Equally troubling, the conceptual frameworks through which AI is understood continue to be shaped largely by institutions and policy agendas originating in the Global North.This session begins from a different premise. AI presents not merely a technological challenge, but an epistemological, pedagogical, and sociological one. At stake are fundamental questions about the future of knowledge, expertise, learning, and the role of higher education in societies marked by inequality, uncertainty, and rapid technological change. Underlying these concerns is the question: What should universities be for in a world where intelligence is no longer exclusively human?

We invite theoretically ambitious and empirically grounded contributions that examine how universities in the Global South are responding to the opportunities and tensions associated with AI. Rather than focusing solely on adoption or resistance, the session seeks scholarship that develops new conceptual frameworks, pedagogical approaches, and institutional strategies for navigating AI-rich educational futures. Contributions may engage themes such as epistemic justice, decolonisation, multilingualism, student agency, academic labour, educational governance, knowledge production, and human formation. We are particularly interested in work that positions the Global South not merely as a site of technological implementation, but as a location from which new theories of higher education, learning, and educational futures can emerge.