Knowledge and Global Power Making new sciences in the South, by Fran Collyer, João Maia, Raewyn Connell, Robert Morrell

Knowledge and Global Power breaks new ground by casting a sharp light on the imaginative work of researchers in the Global South under conditions that still reflect the asymmetries of power in relation to the Global North. Too much of the accounting for research in developing countries is still stuck in colonial legacies and neo-colonial dependency. What is much needed in studies on the global research enterprise is rich descriptions of subalten scholarship that deepens our understanding of the politics of knowledge and gives a sense of hope that dissolves unhelpful binaries about an all-powerful north and a powerless south. This book is a must-read for students in the sociology and politics of knowledge.

– Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Stellenbosch

Knowledge and Global Power is a ground-breaking international study which examines how knowledge is produced, distributed and validated globally. The former imperial nations – the rich countries of Europe and North America – still have a hegemonic position in the global knowledge economy. Fran Collyer, Raewyn Connell, João Maia and Robert Morrell, using interviews, databases and fieldwork, show how intellectual workers respond in three Southern tier countries, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. The study focuses on new, socially and politically important research fields: HIV/AIDS, climate change and gender studies. The research demonstrates emphatically that ‘place matters’, shaping research, scholarship and knowledge itself. But it also shows that knowledge workers in the global South have room to move, setting agendas and forming local knowledge.