Eurocentrism at the Margins: Encounters, Critics and Going Beyond by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Knowledge Society/Economy: The Impossible Promise

As we began this research as a regional project, Egypt was one of the countries we initially wanted to examine in-depth. “We are not in modernity” was the statement of an Egyptian colleague some four years before the 2011 revolution when talking about research. He was expressing, in this way, the fact that research was absent from any policy consideration. The country had left aside all reflexive work on how and why it should produce scientific knowledge. This commonly made statement was also accompanied by a reproach: “why are Egyptian researchers not taken seriously?” Was it that the country in fact impeded development of research? One can see that is largely not the case, but the research system had recently come to a halt in these years (Bond et al., 2012). An example and a case that is even stronger is represented in the work of Kyriaki Papageorgiou (2007) on the development of biological technologies in Egypt, where she shows the paradox that Europeans working in Egypt have been less “modern” than their Egyptian counterparts in their explanations on causes in the biological sciences. Political difficulties impeded some European scientific collaboration in Egypt. The Mubarak reign left feelings of discomfort by fellow academic colleagues at the University of Cairo. The stress on the university system was enormous: lack of funds, inappropriate structures, and bad management. All that made the public research institutions almost paralyzed. Egypt seemed like a showcase of the disastrous situation we just mentioned above. While some research fields were finding their way, as we show in the ESTIME project, a Revolution happened in the meanwhile. We cannot but be convinced that some of the dry wood that fed the Revolution were among the frustrated academics and students.

We began a second project in 2012, based on the same idea: describe the state of knowledge production in Lebanon and (to a lesser extent) Jordan to try to advance understanding of what makes research so rare an interest. The project began with the idea of describing the dynamic of research, as we will explain later.

Since then, research and analysis on knowledge production and innovation in the Arab region has grown exponentially in recent years. Research has become a bit more interesting topic with an expanding awareness of the importance of knowledge in society. The best among all this literature is the book Science, Development, and Sovereignty in the Arab World, by Antoine Zahlan (2012). The worst case for awareness are general statements about the competitiveness of the Arab Economies, where research appears as one among other “pillars”, accompanying claims that Arab countries need to enter the Knowledge Economy. These claims are so broad because they are based on macro-economic assessment themselves “empirically” founded on broad indicators with little or no understanding of the research dynamic. Essentially, they are ostensibly grounded on a thin theory of development. Unfortunately, such statements are to be found in many recent reports. They include a promise for development based on a sort of miraculous inclusion into the knowledge economy.

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