Social Science Research Council

"Socializing Knowledge: The Production and Consumption of Social Science in Malawi"

In Malawi, as in other developing nations, social science is challenged by the precarious position of higher education and by its peripheral location in international knowledge networks. Increasing calls for African scholars to contribute to defining national development agendas occur at a time in which higher education funding is declining and most research is both foreign sponsored and motivated by narrow concerns for application. The overall goal of my multi-sited ethnography project is to understand the institutionalization of social science in Malawi, where it is conditioned by the declining influence of the state, changing expectations for higher education, and growing influence of international donor agencies in both higher education policy and research funding. The central role of scientific knowledge in donor agencies, in Malawi as well as across developing nations, makes it a critical site for the working out of tensions between the political authority of the nation and international aid organizations. Yet, despite the growing influence of donor agencies in countries like Malawi, not a lot is known about their relation to social science or impact on social knowledge construction and its incorporation into public and policy discourses. Even less is understood about the impact that donor politics, competition, and contrasting evidentiary culture has on the productive field for social science. My dissertation project has two objectives. First, I investigate how social science in Malawi is a tool used by government and donor agencies, and, just as significantly, how social science in this "periphery" context itself comes to be produced and legitimated as a result of negotiation around this use. Second, informed by debate over the implications of closer linkage between higher education and knowledge markets, including knowledge for development, I examine the changing institutional conditions of social science at the tertiary level in Malawi and general efforts to enhance social scientific capacity. Through interviews, observations, and document analysis, data will be collected in several kinds of sites, including tertiary education, government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, international research networks, and donor agencies in Malawi as well as in home offices of donor countries.