Abstract
Critical urban research in the 1970s and 1980s in South Africa
played an important role in exposing the implications of repressive
and discriminatory urban policy and management. This critical urban
research movement, which also engaged with approaches for a post-apartheid
city, was subsequently replaced by a neo-liberal turn in urban research,
largely informed by dominant international research thrusts. Within
this context, what is the role of international cooperation?
The paper takes a critical look at north-south urban research initiatives
involving research in South Africa, to which the author has had
direct exposure. The paper also examines the changing conditions
under which local research funding is made available in South Africa,
using the example of current restructuring of research funding at
Wits University, Johannesburg. The paper argues that these conditions
broadly follow the (neo-liberal) institutional trends set by the
Anglophone northern counterparts. Should north-south cooperation
reinforce this trend?
The paper highlights the critical need for publication and dissemination
in the south, of local as well as international research. Access
in the south to academic literature, and the publication and dissemination
of local research, are crucial in order for southern researchers
to effectively cooperate. The paper points to the imbalance of facilities
and resources in many north-south co-operations. Linked to this
is the critical question as to where and by whom the research agenda
is set. Far from assuming that research on South African urban issues
is best initiated, conducted and funded locally, the paper argues
that value is added when researchers from different regions apply
different questions to the same problematic. Here the example is
used of an interdisciplinary cooperation between a group of young
international and local PhD researchers addressing a similar urban
problematic in South Africa, but with different theoretical approaches
depending on the region of their academic home.
The complexity of the unevenly developed urban south requires many
different questions to be asked. The paper argues that ideally north-south
cooperation should lead to enrichment in terms of the research questions
and the theoretical approach. In this sense, international cooperation
should bring together a diversity of approaches, rather than imposing
one dominant framework as is often the case.
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