TY - JOUR AU - Gueye, Abdoulaye PY - 2021/05/23 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Looking Towards the Motherland:: The Roles of the African Academic Diaspora in Knowledge Production in Africa JF - International Journal of African Higher Education JA - IJAHE VL - 8 IS - 2 SE - Articles DO - UR - https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ijahe/article/view/13473 SP - 29-42 AB - <p>In the past 20 or so years, the African diaspora’s engagement in universities<br>in Africa has inspired numerous studies. This article contributes to this<br>literature both empirically and theoretically. Questioning the nationalism<br>paradigm, which chiefly attributes African diaspora academics’ interventions<br>in African higher education institutions to patriotism, it argues<br>that any explanation of the privileged forms of this engagement ought<br>to consider two major factors. The first is that African diaspora scholars<br>have been socialised in a strong colonial-era ideological imperative, which<br>values engagement in Africa; their socio-professional relevance on their<br>continent of origin should thus be assessed in this light. The second factor<br>is that African diaspora academics are integrated into professional foreign<br>academic institutions with their own rules and high stakes. While they<br>are urged to serve in Africa, they are also required to excel in their local<br>institution and at the global academic level. Given the time constraints this<br>imposes, diaspora academics’ engagement in Africa is confined to roles<br>that are compatible with the expectations imposed by Western academia.</p><p>Key Words: diaspora, African academics, higher education, engagement,<br>Africa</p> ER -