Globalization, democratization and knowledge production

9.4 PUBLIC DOMAIN OF ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE

In this section, I refer specifically to the democratization of academic knowledge. I discuss indigenous knowledge systems in chapter eleven of this dissertation. The following two quotes from interviews conducted with two postgraduate students at Fort Hare capture the range of views participants hold with respect to the public domain of scholarship:

Researchers are part of the entire South African society. The advisors to the political departmental heads use information given to them by research institutions… researchers should have the freedom to conduct their research and a freedom to disseminate their findings. They should play a leading role in giving advice to public policy makers for the sole purpose of an improved society. (I: Sipho)
And,
“What is the man in the street going to do with knowledge if he is hungry?” (I: Vusi)
The notion of the public domain of academic research was relatively new for some participants who had some difficulty believing that academic knowledge should and could be publicized. Others, however, believed that universities have a social responsibility and that the research generated by universities should have a public value. Several participants were not convinced that research could become readily available to the wider public through the use of new technologies such as the Internet, because of the academic discourse in which it is framed and the paucity of public access to computers. They pointed out that the very communities they work with and with whom they wish to share their research findings did not have access to computers and were often illiterate. In fact, a study at UPE showed that students from severely disadvantaged communities had not even used an ATM machine or a microwave oven prior to their arrival at the university (I: Piet).

Participants claimed that it was essential at least to make research available to practitioners and policy makers. As one participant observed,

There are people out there, not all of them are interested in being researchers, but they are interested in being competent practitioners. If they could have access to the research that is being done that would give more solutions to the problems that they are encountering out there . . . That would be a useful system. (I: Toni)
Participants Fezi, Pat and Piet asserted that government, especially at the provincial level, did not have the propensity to utilise this kind of knowledge in their decision-making. Despite this view, there are examples of government drawing heavily on research generated at the university, for example, the Coega Harbour IDZ (Industrial Development Zone) project and the coastal environment project with the departments of Water Affairs and also Environmental Affairs (I: Pat, Piet). Furthermore, the government publishes all policy documents online and the South African Library website is linked to the government website (see http://www.gov.za/). The evidence from the study indicates that Internet access was not as unattainable as some participants believed. Some participants pointed out that there were examples of government and private sector programmes --such as school projects, equipping community centers with computers and extending Internet access throughout the country-- that render the notion of public access to knowledge less remote. The government and telecommunications corporate sector partner, Telkom, had installed computers and e-learning at some 3,000 schools across the country, including the remote Kalahari desert region, through a project called “Schoolnet” (I: Rita; William). ⁵² It is important to be mindful that the quality of connections and the incidence of power failures in remote areas may pose a problem for widespread electronic access to public knowledge.

Notwithstanding these diverging views about increasing the public value of knowledge through new technologies, it was found that UPE academics publicize their research through popular publishing formats such as magazines, newsletters, radio programmes, newspapers and public presentations at science and technology exhibitions (see chapter four). According to Pat, the NRF, through its rating system, awards extra points to academics who make science more accessible to the public; hence, her presentations, exhibitions, discussions, displays and hands on projects and activities at the annual National Science Fest.

Graduate student Sipho, who was committed to increasing the public domain of knowledge, developed strategies to involve the public sectors in his research. He explained that his research has entailed working closely with local government. His role as a researcher has been to conduct surveys with local communities to “investigate as to what is needed and then disseminate information to such people leading those projects… in the municipality” (I: Sipho). To ensure that local government did not see his role as interference in their affairs, he worked as a volunteer in the Department of Finance at local government: “The way in which I cracked it is because there are always the barriers because the officials feel that somebody is actually interfering with their work, so I started as a volunteer with the Department of Finance in the local government” (I: Sipho).

An area of public knowledge of which Fort Hare is now custodian is the archive of the liberation movements. These rich historical archives of South Africa’s past have been formally handed over to Fort Hare, through agreements between the university, the Government, and the respective liberation organizations (I: Thandi). These archives were deposited at the National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre of the university (op cit). The library is in the process of digitizing parts of the collection --to ensure that they are accessible to the public-- with the help of students from the University of Michigan, where Thandi completed her master’s studies, using (EAD) because it “allows for better searching capabilities” (I: Thandi). The intention is: “To keep the records alive – keeping the records alive is to allow research to flow in and out of the archive” (I: Thandi).

In summary, participants were of the view that academic researchers should play a bigger role in shaping public policy, locally, nationally, and regionally. As academic Goodall contended, it was necessary to increase the public domain of knowledge:

For a host of reasons in terms of the socio-economic responsibility of tertiary institutions to, amongst other, contribute to improving the quality of life in communities. This is not just rhetoric. Secondly, the major marketing advantages to the tertiary institutions to communicate their research prowess and the contributions of their research findings to enhancing the quality of life.

In addition, academics posited that regional African organizations such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) could benefit from research that focused on regional growth, sustainable development, peace, and security. Open access would also ensure that the deliberations of these organizations at various conferences and forums could be made available to the public immediately. As academic Geyer contended, knowledge creation does not emanate from the academia alone, but should be a two-way process in which we acknowledge the valuable indigenous knowledge that resides within disadvantaged communities. Linked to this view was the concern not only about Western domination of knowledge creation and dissemination, but Western hegemony in determining definitions of knowledge and public knowledge. One participant, for example, raised the question about the imperialism of knowledge and knowledge ownership: “Who generates the knowledge? Who sets the rules and determines what is scientific?” (Rani). These issues will be discussed further in chapter eleven of this dissertation.