Prof. Achille Mbembe
By Mark Paterson and Thierry M Luescher
African universities do not primarily exist to prepare students for the job market, but rather to produce the knowledge and the skills that can help the continent avert environmental catastrophe and create a better life for all, according to Cameroonian public intellectual Achille Mbembe.
“If one links the destiny of a university to the question of livelihoods alone, one is clearly neglecting a huge dimension of what it means to be human,” he said.
Mbembe, who is a research professor in history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa, notes that the challenge posed by the climate change crisis is “forcing people to reinvent almost everything”.
“As far as Africa is concerned, this new epoch forces the continent to abandon the illusion that maybe development can be enacted deploying old models, such as the industrialisation that previously took place in England or a version of what has been enacted in China.
“The paradigm must be shifted and start from the assumption that the only way to chart a path for Africa’s rise out of poverty over the next 100 years is by adopting a form of development which begins to take seriously humans’ relationship with nature.”
‘Knowledges in dialogue with each other’
In this context, Mbembe notes that the discourse around the role of the university needs to be reframed: “Rather than considering universities as institutions for facilitating the production of livelihoods and the acquisition of jobs, there should be a focus on how they can produce the kinds of knowledge systems required to repair the Earth, which has been damaged to the point of no longer being able to sustain humanity in the long term.”
To this end, universities should introduce students to different forms of knowledge from a wide range of traditions and leverage digital technology to counter parochialism among African academics.
“Universities should enable access to a plurality of archives which are the common heritage of all humanity, regardless of individual identity. In this regard, indigenous knowledge makes sense within an ecology of different knowledges. So, the goal should be to compose an ecology of different knowledges in dialogue with each other.”
Decolonisation
In this respect, Mbembe notes that, within higher education, the different knowledge systems in the world should not be viewed as mutually exclusive: “Nobody should go to the university and never have heard of, for example, ancient China or ancient Africa, and be unable to say something meaningful about those other traditions … If that is what is meant by decolonisation, then the term makes sense.
“But, if decolonisation means eradicating, say, Western traditions, and only learning one kind of language at the expense of others, then it is not an approach that I consider to be of value.”
The dialogue among knowledges may be promoted by deploying digital technologies to strengthen continental networks so that academics in Africa can connect more directly with peers continentally and globally, according to Mbembe.
“To date, the intellectual sphere in the continent has been characterised by various forms of provincialisation,” he said. “Academics in South Africa don’t really speak to those in Mozambique; and those in Mozambique don’t speak to their peers in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Such national blindness can now be dismantled, thanks to technology.”
Pursuing a climate-friendly agenda
Mbembe also notes a lack of vision in the ways that the future of the African university and, more broadly, the role of the African state, are framed.
Advising that “the time has probably come to define what a university should do, as well as what it can do better”, he says: “There is a lack of attention being paid to some of the fundamental questions which concern whether the present model for jobs – that is, the capitalist model for creating wealth – is sustainable, particularly since the indications are that it is not.”
In particular, Mbembe notes the limited nature of present perspectives on the role of the university in preparing students for the world of work: “At present, the connection between the university and job creation is framed as if all the graduates end up in the Sandton financial district of Johannesburg working for some pension fund, which is a ridiculous conception. Not everybody will end up there.”
He argues that, in seeking to pursue a climate-friendly agenda for development, a different set of questions needs to be asked around the kinds of jobs that may be created and which should be the priority sectors.
“The climate change crisis has shown that the model has to be reinvented, which must entail a change in the terms of interrogation,” he said.
Changing role of the state
In relation to reimagining the role of the state, Mbembe outlines a number of key questions that would need to be addressed.
“For example, how can or should the state protect people under climate change? How does it make decisions about who may be left to die and who is to be saved? All of these biopolitical questions are, once again, pressing.”
In relation to reimagining the role of the university “within the context of efforts to repair this world”, he argues that the issue of jobs should be addressed in relation to the kinds of livelihoods in which most people on the continent engage rather than in terms of formal waged work.
He argues that universities should be producing knowledge on how the ways in which basic needs are being addressed may be restructured.
“For example, what kind of food production and supply would be envisaged? And what about water? What are the jobs that may accrue from prioritising issues such as water and renewable, low-cost forms of energy?”
Noting that higher education should be producing both technical and theoretical forms of knowledge that address “the present state of Africa”, he identifies a number of sectors in which universities could innovate, “provided they are given the resources to do so”.
Mbembe says that one way of meeting basic needs while repairing the Earth would be to establish new schools. Another would be to adapt existing ones.
“Rather than seeking to push institutions into pursuing completely new directions, one way of addressing this would be to fund the establishment of courses or even new institutions that are more interdisciplinary; initiatives that could bring together the health sciences, the natural sciences and the human sciences; and laboratories and spaces in which new kinds of experiments and new forms of thinking may be developed.”
However, he says, significant resources would have to be provided in support of such a restructuring drive – resources that are clearly not forthcoming at present.
“I’m very pessimistic insofar as the future of the university is concerned – not only on the continent but worldwide. It seems to me that, if the prevailing trends continue, then the present stratification among universities will be amplified.
“Increasingly, there will be a few top universities connected directly to the powers that determine the direction of the world economy. Given that many states no longer prioritise funding for higher education, it is difficult to see how that trend will be reversed.”
This article is based on an interview conducted by Professor David Everatt for ‘The Imprint of Education’ project, which is being implemented by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. This project, which includes a series of critical engagements with experienced scholars and thought leaders on their reimaginings of higher education in Africa, investigates current and future challenges facing the sector, including best practices and innovations. Thierry M Luescher and Mark Paterson edited the transcript for focus and length. A full transcript of the interview can be downloaded from the HSRC’s website.
Culled from University World News
