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Africa Knows! It is time to decolonise minds

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Accepted Paper: B06-02. To panel B06.

Title of paper:

Authors:

Henk van den Heuvel (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam);

Wil Hout (Erasmus University Rotterdam).

Long abstract paper:
Capacity building projects in higher education in the 'Global South' have been financed by a succession of financial instruments managed by governmental organisations and international institutions. This paper discusses our experience with two such financing instruments, focusing on the way in which relationships are framed in donor documents and applications forms used in the EU's Erasmus+ programme. The paper reflects on how reciprocity in collaboration, which is rhetorically one of the objectives of the programme, can be operationalised in reality given the structure of financing and reporting required under Erasmus+. We discuss the pitfalls of the programme structure for 'knowledge transfer' to and 'capacity building' of so-called 'beneficiary institutions' in Africa, particularly in view of the reproduction of dependency relations in knowledge production and ownership produced by that structure, as well as for reciprocal effects on education and research at the European universities. We reflect on the way in which attempts at more equal knowledge production have been successful and on the conditions under which those attempts have been realised in the capacity building projects both in Africa and in Europe.

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