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Dear seminar attendees,
The title of the seminar is “Who is the expert? Re-defining scientific quality standards as a
source of resistance towards colonially ascribed identities”, and it draws on the last chapters
of my forthcoming (Dec. -09) dissertation in Theory of Science, Gothenburg University, Sweden.
My dissertation has so far not explicitly dealt with issues of resistance or used theories explicitly
discussing resistance, and it is therefore my hope that the seminar is going to give useful
comments on this theme as I can see its presence in every “corner” of my material, and this
paper is therefore an introduction to my dissertation rather than a set presentation of resistance
strategies, theories etc.
The empirical case in focus of my dissertation is the international research alliance
The Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (se below), but the aim has not been to evaluate the MIM,
but instead to analyse it and present a background for why certain actors felt this kind of initiative
was needed. The dissertation therefore studies activities carried out within the alliance and ideas
expressed by researchers linked to this alliance in order to show in what ways micro-scientific
events (fact making activities) are related to macro-phenomena such as historical and global
discourses.
Also, I have struggled with questions regarding the gap between research and their
sites of implementation (in this case: whether a philosophical and sociological analysis of malaria
research can be of relevance to science policy entities, people working within organisations like
the MIM, etc.), i.e. on a personal level the aim of this work has also been to investigate whether
the “ivory tower syndrome” of such an abstract and theoretical discipline like Theory of Science
is inescapable or not, and the seminar is therefore invited to comment also on this theme.
When reading the following text I ask you to kindly bear in mind that this is “work
in progress”, that the text is meant to serve as a background for the seminar and that it therefore
only very briefly presents a few aspects of an immensely complex topic. The text is thus a point
of departure for a discussion and I welcome your input and critique, but disapprove of anybody
quoting these embryonic thoughts of mine.
Kind regards, Gunilla Priebe
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Abstract, Presentation at the Resistance Studies Seminar 2008-12-04, School of Global
Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden, author: gunilla.priebe@theorysc.gu.se
Who is the expert? Re-defining scientific quality standards as a source of
resistance towards colonially ascribed identities
Background: Science & Technology in Africa
The mainstream narrative commonly treats science as if it developed as a consequence of events
and activities taking place on the European continent only (e.g. Merton 1973, Popper 1972), but
alternative research has now shown that what we today call Science & Technology (S&T, or
technoscience) rather consists of knowledge and practices collected from all over the world, but
recycled through European institutions (Harding 1993, D’Ambrosio 1992, Raina 1999).1
Apparently early encounters between African and European scientists were characterised by a
mutual (but unorganised) exchange of knowledge, but this changed as the colonial project
progressed and global knowledge production has since become increasingly subjugated to the
cultures, politics, economics and military strategies of colonialism. Scholars have therefore
described colonial S&T in Africa not only as “part of [the] oppressor’s baggage” but as the “very
agency” that “enabled them to subdue and govern a subject people” (Palladino & Worboys 1993;
98).2 Consequently, the purpose of colonial S&T-education (when it at all was open to Africans)
varied from being part of the “civilizing mission”3 to functioning as a preparation of “technicians
to assist their … masters in subjects of immediate economic value” (ibid). It can therefore be
stated that colonial S&T (even when it concernec “colonial problems”) seldom was directed by
the needs and priorities of the African populations (Gaillard et al 2005). Part of the strategies
after independence was therefore to nationalise research institutions (i.e. to develop these and to
try and make sure that S&T now served the African peoples),4 and around the 1970s a beginning
recognition of African science started to show.5 Though, by the end of the 1980s this took a halt
1 E.g. European intellectuals (”amateurs … who travelled … to satisfy their intellectual curiosity”, Mouton 2003)
adopted both detailed and larger blocks of knowledge that served as the foundation of new scientific disciplines
within the European university system.
2 See also Gaillard et al (2005; 178): “Many of the scientific pursuits in the colonies of Africa were confined to
exploration, surveys, data collection and the application of techniques mainly to promote colonial economic
policies”, Mouton (2003), Waast & Krishna (2003).
3 Evidently the colonies were different in many ways, and so was the strategies of the colonial powers, but especially
the dictum of French colonialism was “la mission civilisatrice” – a mission dependent on the idea that Europeans
possessed valuable, objective and high quality knowledge while the colonised Africans possessed the opposite (trivial,
subjective, etc. knowledge), (Azar 2001, Achebe in Brydon 2000).
4 The independence of many African countries coincided with a global – almost unquestioned – faith in science
(illustrated e.g. in the Truman-doctrine), and development agencies as well as international politics were thus at the
time dominated by the catchphrase ”Put money into science and GNP will increase” (Elzinga 1988; 5, see also Ben-
David 1992).
5 Despite attempts to become independent a lot of postcolonial S&T has also been directed by the logic of
colonialism. Landberg (1982; 32) wrote for example in a UNESCO-report that: “International – and bilateral –
advice in science and technology has to a very high degree built on varying external patterns from the ex-colonial
powers. Advice in science and technology policies has consequently been tied to structures and traditions alien to the
cultures of the developing countries or imposed on them by the colonial powers. … Remainders of this structure are
still to be found. … Research results gained therefore do not necessarily benefit developing countries but often
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as a consequence of both internal political factors and external pressure and S&T in most African
countries are still under resourced both in terms of human capacity and infrastructure (Waast &
Krishna 2003). Though, from the mid 1990s the (WB/IMF) wind started to change direction and
national state capacity was again in fashion, and S&T again presented as the proper vehicle for
Africa on its road to development and prosperity. The WB/IMF, international development
agencies and African governments are consequently again prioritising the strengthening of
African research capacity.
Empirical focus: The Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM)
In 1995-96 representatives for major international research agencies and a couple of African
scientists met at FIC/ NIH (the international section of the US National Institutes of Health) to
discuss how research could help in improving the health situation in Africa. It was soon decided
that a new research initiative should be launched focusing on malaria – The Multilateral Initiative
on Malaria (MIM). Though, the present African scientists put forward that more research on
malaria was not enough: if the malaria problem was going to be solved research had to be based
in Africa. The reasons given were (in short) that North-driven research historically had privileged
the malaria problems experienced by militaries and tourists temporarily visiting malaria endemic
areas. In addition, science in the North was said to be driven by “academic considerations” and
professional recognition to be measured in relation to internal criteria (for scientific excellence),
rather than in relation to the usefulness of knowledge (whether it was relevant for solving
practical problems experienced in malaria endemic regions), something one of my informants
have commented on as follows:
It is one thing to work in a laboratory in the US, you know, in Bethesda, or in London or, you
know, Paris. It is another thing to actually have an understanding of the complexity of the disease in
its actual setting. … [In the US etc. scientist are driven by] …scientific curiosity. It’s the complexity
of a system. … the overriding force for a lot of people is the innovative science and curiosity. I
think in the background of course, these are major public health problems, but academic scientists
very often are driven by innovation and not by taking the next step – difficult step – of taking it in
advance; of translating it into an intervention. (informant 7)
And one of the world’s leading malaria researchers made a similar comment at a MIM-
conference:
…it is very sobering to reflect on how much clinical research has had any real effect on practice in
the ordinary hospitals all over Africa that deal with severe malaria on a day to day basis. … unless
we know what is going on [in the hospitals] and probably more importantly what is not happening,
we start from a pretty unrealistic position if we want our research to have a real impact … one of
the reasons why we often don’t have a clear picture is that this kind of research, whether one calls it
audit or operational research or applied health systems research, is very difficult. Unfortunately, it is
also seriously unattractive, there are not many papers in Nature or the New England Journal to be
had from it (Marsh 1999).
The Northern driven research is thus contrasted with African based research, which is said to
have closer connections with local malaria control programmes, a better understanding of “the
complexity of the disease in its actual setting”, and a higher interest in policy relevant research as
contribute rather to the ‘general scientific development’ dominated by the developed countries. No systematic efforts
have been made by international agencies or bilateral aid-donors to ‘untie’ science and technology from these bands”.
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African based scientists to a higher extent were believed to be driven by consideration of the
malaria afflicted children and pregnant women in Africa (whom according to the WHO carry
>95% of the world’s malaria burden). Another of my informants discussed the relation between
high profile academic science and the science needed for solving problems, like this:
…it is not always that you can try and do that kind of science that will reach Nature and so on, but if
we want recognition, the recognition should be in solving the problems we have. Not in having a
Science Citation Index. Because, I respect all that, the people who have high journals, high citations,
they have their agenda: they want things to be studied which has an impact on their own perception
of the problems affecting them. If you write a paper on geriatrics, on diabetes, on cancer or on
those things, you are more likely to get to those high hit journals. Write one on hook worm: God
bless you! But 80% of the school children in our rural areas carry hook worm in one way or the
other, and it has actually been shown that this has an impact on their school performance. OK? But
it is not a hot topic. OK, so I think we need to brake away from that colonial part. The only thing
we need is to do the science, and to do it well: correctly, rigorous. … So I think that the African
scientists should be courageous enough: when the work is of international nature, publish it
internationally. But if it is not, publish it in your own local journal, but get [it]… circulated. … Most
of my colleagues, African scientists, are caught within this web of trying to satisfy the western
science and it is not realistic. I do some molecular biology, but if I sit here and try to beat Professor
Baltimore in New York I am wasting my bloody time. … So, it is a question of refocusing, a
question of absorbing the science, but to maintain uncompromising when it comes to rigor –
scientific rigor. You know, once we fulfil this, we shouldn’t be ashamed of the results that we get,
because if those results are really correct, we should not wish they were other (informant 11).
The idea behind the formation of the MIM was thus that African based malaria research would
take the reality of people living in malaria endemic Africa as its point of departure, and therefore
produce scientific facts relevant to these populations as well as local disease control programmes.
But, as many countries in Africa lacked the means to conduct high quality research, research
capacity building became one of the main tasks of this new initiative, and it has therefore focused
on (1) developing and strengthening African malaria research capacity, (2) promoting global
communication between different “malaria actors”, (3) enhancing links between research and
control programmes, (4) enhancing international awareness of the suffering caused by malaria,
and (5) increasing international and national research funding. Since the inception of the MIM,
Pan-African malaria conferences, specialised seminars, leadership training etc. have been
organised; information technology devises have been installed at African research centres; free
research reagents have been made available to African laboratories; research funding mechanisms
specifically directed towards internationally cooperative malaria research projects have been
established, etc. (www.mimalaria.org).
Chapters in focus: Identities and Discourses Acted Out at a Malaria Conference
The last chapters of my dissertation on which the seminar presentation is based, is a conference
ethnography, i.e. this (second) part of the dissertation does not focus on the MIM in general but
the text is organised around events that took place during the fourth MIM Pan-African malaria
conference (“New Strategies Against An Ancient Scourge”) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 2005.6 The
6The empirical material of this part consists of qualitative interviews with eleven malaria researchers of different
disciplines, private video- and sound recordings from plenary sessions, seminars, symposia, coffee breaks etc. at the
conference venue, the conference’s book of abstracts, programme, participant list, and web material from the official
conference website, including video recordings, power point-presentations and written reports from various
conference events (available at www.mimalaria.org and www.kaisernetwork.com).
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four chapters of this part thus present conference actors and themes from plenary sessions,
poster- and seminar presentations, symposia discussions, which are then analysed in relation to
the concept of “the co-production of science and social order” (Janasoff 2004) and (postcolonial)
theories specific to the theme of each chapter (see below).7
In the two chapters that are the focus of the seminar, the purpose of the MIM is
further concretized. Here it is discussed in detail what kind of research MIM promotes – both in
terms of disciplines (molecular biology or sociology?) and topics, i.e. what kind of research is
carried out when it is directed by the needs of malaria endemic Africa.8 This brings the identity of
the patient to the foreground and two patient categories (the permanent resident and the
temporary visitor) are identified, and it is shown how the definition of malaria and research focus
change depending on what patient is in focus. Following this, the participant list is investigated in
relation to the issue of identity and expertise (i.e. in relation to what has been said about the
motivation of Northern and African based scientists). Thus, the MIM-projected is here related to
work regarding the stability/ hybridity of identities (i.e. what it means to be African vs.
European), and to work regarding scientific expertise (specifically to how the links between S&T
and other societal orders have influenced who can receive the status of a scientific expert).9
Finally, the analysis (chapter 10) discusses “MIM as a spokesperson” and “MIM as
a Third Space”. Firstly, as the MIM is speaking for certain categories of scientists and patients,
this analysis deals with what it takes to be a legitimate spokesperson for somebody (specifically
for scientists, children and women living in malaria endemic Africa). The work of Spivak on the
possibility to speak for somebody else, is here set to meat with the ANT-discussion on the role of
spokespersons in scientific networks, i.e. this chapter discusses scientists’ possibility to speak for
the biological body of the Other (Spivak 2000 etc., Callon 1983). secondly, the MIM-activities are
analysed in relation to the concept of Third Space, developed by Homi Bhabha (1999), i.e. the
final analysis also deals with in what ways the MIM destabilises historical social orders and
enables new positions to emerge, and how creates spaces that at the same time carries and breaks
away from history.
Questions for the seminar:
1. What resistance themes do you see in this material?
2. What would the contribution be of an explicit focus on resistance?
7 The concept of “the co-production of science and social order” handles the mutuality of scientific products and
their societal context: “co-production is shorthand for the proposition that the ways in which we know and represent
the world (both nature and society) are inseparable from the ways in which we choose to live in it. Knowledge and
its material embodiments are at once products of social work and constitutive of forms of social life; society cannot
function without knowledge any more than knowledge can exist without appropriate social support. Scientific
knowledge, in particular, is not a transcendent mirror of reality. It both embeds and is embedded in social practices,
identities, norms, conventions discourses, instruments and institutions – in short, in all the building blocks of what
we term the social (Jasanoff (2004; 2 f, emphasis in original).
8 Research focuses that will be presented and discussed in this chapter is for example the development of acquired
immunity, the relation between malaria and other diseases (e.g. HIV/AIDS, TB), the relation between malaria and
anaemia, how malaria is handled at the household level, herbal remedies used for treating malaria, etc.
9 This discussion is inspired by what for example Achebe (e.g. “Europe’s reliance on its own experts would not
worry us if it did not, at the same time, attempt to exclude African testimony … a real European is someone that is
educated and cultivated. A real African is someone that lives in the bush”, Achebe in Brydon 2000), and Mudimbe
(1988 and 1994).
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3. Is there a risk when “imposing” the theme of resistance on actors that do not themselves
talk about their actions in term of resistance?
4. How does the resistance theme go together with descriptive approaches?
5. What is the difference between resistance and a general strive for change?
Summary of chapters 6-7
The seminar presentation will focus on the above, but in case somebody is interested I will also
introduce its preceding parts. Chapter 7 presents symposia and discussion seminars dealing with
research capacity building strategies, it shows how the motives, methods and strategies for
building research capacity vary between different international organisations, and it discusses
what the tension between research agendas and aid agendas means for the work and organisation
of the MIM. Chapter 6 presents the speeches made at the conference’s welcome and opening
ceremonies, speeches that to their larger part focused on the relation between science and other
societal institutions, i.e. on the “social contract of science”; on the social responsibilities of
science and scientists; the potential for change through scientific work, and so forth. This topic is
not unique to the MIM or malaria research, and the project has therefore been to show how
these speeches both have linkages to historical and mainstream science policy negotiations, and
what the specific implications of “contract”-talk are for the network where MIM is active. A pair
of concepts that are commonly used for analysing the social contract of science are scientific
autonomy vs. heteronomy (Blomqvist 1992, Baldursson 1999),10 whereas autonomy has been the
leading ideal of Northern science policy since app. WWII.11 This ideal is based on the belief that
nobody but scientists understand the works of science and that they therefore are the ones that
can and should make decisions regarding the direction of science. In addition, as the usefulness
of research often cannot be predicted specified goals are believed to only hamper innovative
thought.
This view has been questioned,12 and the voices heard at the MIM-conference
challenge it in several and specific ways: firstly, the argument behind research capacity building
(that Northern driven research had neglected issues of crucial importance to malaria endemic
settings) illustrates how non-science actors (actors representing economic, military etc. interests)
seem to have had almost a free play in malaria research, i.e. the ideal of scientific autonomy seem
to have dispersed when research agendas met with military and other agendas, and the ideal was
therefore never principal to malaria research. Secondly, this argument shows that scientific
autonomy does not necessarily refer to academically external actors, but also to geographically
distant ones, i.e. the scientific autonomy African based scientists are advocating for is not
primarily formulated in opposition to national governmental institutions, but to Northern based
research agendas which are perceived as non-significant to people living in malaria endemic
settings. In short, this chapter shows that the formulation of scientific facts is inseparable from
10 Autonomy signifies a situation where scientific goals are separated from societal goals, while heteronomy signifies
a situation where societal goals are superior to scientific goals (Baldursson 1999).
11 These discussions have been going on since the middle ages and was first focused on the tension between the
church and free intellectuals, later on (enlightenment period) on political authorities and intellectuals, and more
recently (WWI and II and after) on political ideologies (in Nazi-Germany, Stalinist Soviet etc.) and science.
12 As negative effects of S&T have become visible and because science in many Northern countries are state funded
both the public and government authorities have increasingly started to question the self-regulative doctrine. In
addition, social studies of science have shown that an autonomous science possibly can be an ideal but never a
reality, and that the question therefore not seem to be whether or not science should be influenced by politics,
religion, ideologies but what ideology etc. should be allowed to direct scientific work (Longino, Jasanoff, Latour, etc.).
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social orders, i.e. that changes in fact making activities go hand in hand with changes in social
orders (ranging from the organisation of scientific projects, to changes in national sovereignty
and military power balances).
Summary of chapters 1-5
The first part (chap. 1-5, presented as a licentiate thesis in June 2007) is empirically focused on
the launch, the formation and the work carried out within the MIM 1995-200513 It describes the
actor negotiations that took place in the malaria research system where MIM was established and
carried out its work, but the analysis is directed towards theoretical issues of importance to my
own discipline. As I had noticed that empirical references within Theory of Science almost
exclusively were made to S&T in Europe and North America, I wondered what this meant (for
the focus of these theories and for their relevance for the analysis of S&T in Africa) and the
analysis of this part is therefore explicitly dealing with one of the leading theoretical frameworks
within Theory of Science (Actor Network Theory and its model “The Circulatory System of
Scientific Facts”, Latour 1999). As some features of S&T-work are similar wherever they take
place the result of this “tryout” was that some aspects of the theories showed to be relevant for
the analysis of MIM and the situation MIM has tried to deal with. E.g. the study showed that
ANT and its model could be used for identifying relevant actors and for following them in many
of the negotiations they were engaged in when trying to translate various interests. But – the
limited empirical base also meant that ANT was blind to and incapable of handling some of the
societal conditions that are crucial to S&T-work in Africa. Discussions within ANT, for example,
take a critical mass of science students, a high societal status of S&T and scientists, research
infrastructure of high quality etc. for granted. In addition, the descriptive approach of ANT and
its focus on “effects of the present”, meant that it fails to handle what has been excluded from
the network and power inequalities which are one of the leading themes within the network in
focus. It thus fails to capture that a system in practice can exclude references to actors that on a
theoretical level are assumed present in the system (i.e. references to small children and women in
malaria endemic Africa), and that science is constituted not only by what is present, but also by
what has been made absent by the system. The general conclusion of the first part of my
dissertation was therefore, in short, that ANT, as an example of a Theory of Science, need to deal
with the consequences of its Eurocentric distortion, extend its empirical base to global S&T, and
formulate its studies, conclusions etc. in awareness of the workings of larger macro-phenomena
such as historical, economical, geopolitical etc. power afflicted discourses (Priebe 2007).
13The empirical material for this part consists of various texts: meeting protocols, conference reports, web pages,
reports from workshops, etc., newsletters, mailing lists, evaluations, scientific and other MIM-related articles, etc.
