RefLex and the Possibility of Transformative “North-South” Research Collaborations

On 20 November 2024, Humboldt College of Berlin (HU), by means of the Berlin College Alliance (BUA), turned a signatory to the Africa Constitution for Transformative Analysis Collaborations. This piece positions and introduces the important thing argument of the Africa Constitution, posits its relevance as a benchmark for RefLex, a brand new Centre for Superior Research at HU, and proposes a set of queries to information its operationalisation inside the Institute and probably past in related “North-South” initiatives.

I provide these reflections drawing on my shut involvement within the improvement of the mental underpinnings of the Africa Constitution, the coordination of the initiative to advance its implementation, and the BUA signature to it.

Transformative analysis collaborations

Co-created by Africa’s main increased training (HE) constituencies in 2023, the Africa Constitution affords a brand new conceptual and normative framework for fascinated about and for overcoming the multi-layered energy imbalances that proceed to pervade and are reproduced by means of joint tutorial inquiry between actors in Africa and counterparts, significantly the “world North”.

The Africa Constitution emerged within the context of increasing worldwide, significantly “North-South”, scientific cooperation, alongside an intensified debate – largely led by the International North – on the necessity to guarantee equitability in such collaborations. It shifts the locus of consideration firmly to the “South” and requires transferring past typical concepts of “equitable analysis partnerships” (ERP) to rethink what real fairness in collaborations must entail and, finally, what it’s for.

Drawing on anti-, post-, and decolonial and different important scholarship from the continent, the Africa Constitution makes use of the heuristic of a set of concentric circles to find, in contrast to ERP frames, not solely tangible, seen energy asymmetries – for instance, these ensuing from unequal sources and infrastructure throughout companion establishments, in addition to from how labour, decision-making, and management over joint outputs are organised inside collaborative tasks. As well as, the Africa Constitution identifies extra elementary energy imbalances that should do with the varieties of information which can be produced. These emerge by means of the dominant use of Eurocentric methods of realizing, ideas and theories, former colonial languages, and customary concepts about ‘improvement’ within the manufacturing of recent information in, for, or in regards to the continent.

The Africa Constitution requires a brand new mode of “North-South” collaboration that redresses every layer of energy imbalance. It argues that such a collaboration is, doubtlessly, transformative. If adopted extensively as finest and customary observe throughout fields, it carries the potential to rebalance the unfavourable and peripheral positioning of Africa within the world tutorial analysis system general.

Such rebalancing, guaranteeing that students, establishments, and information produced from the continent take their rightful place within the world manufacturing of educational information, is the Africa Constitution’s final aim. It frames this ambition as a matter of fairness and social justice, of advancing Africa’s political and financial aspirations, and of fostering a richer and stronger and pluriversal world tutorial effort that’s higher geared up to handle the crises and challenges going through humanity immediately.

In signing the Africa Constitution, the BUA management signalled not solely an settlement with its analysis. It additionally presupposed (maybe problematically) a readiness of its school, senior administration, {and professional} companies workers to pursue a realisation of the Africa Constitution’s ideas and aspirations by means of modifications to coverage and observe.

RefLex as a possible web site for exploring a transformative collaboration mode

RefLex is a brand new Centre for Superior Research of the Humboldt College of Berlin that encompasses ‘South-North’ dialogue and inquiry on the “South-North” encounter in contestations of dominant colonial foundations and ideas of regulation worldwide. As such, RefLex is ideally positioned to aim a deliberate pursuit of a collaboration mode aligned with Africa Constitution ambitions.

Doing so wants to start with open and significant exploration of the positioning and orientation of RefLex, drawing on the person and collective reflexivity of the Centre heads, analysis workers, fellows, and interlocutors.

The next set of foundational queries, that are reflective of the Africa Constitution’s core argument, might serve to information and construction a collective exploration:

On positionality and positioning:

Who’s within the room? What are their institutional and private positionalities vis-à-vis “North” and “South”, taking into account the ambiguities and overlaps inherent in each phrases? What energy dynamics exist or come up amongst them?
What orientations, values or “politics” inform the scholarship of these within the room? And the way, if in any respect, do these relate to considerations about fairness and social justice in tutorial information manufacturing or materials lives?
What joint general ambition for RefLex – between deepening mental perception and the fostering of “after worlds” – is to be solid from this?

On multilayered energy imbalances and how you can tackle them:

What implications come up from RefLex’s present positioning as a novel mental effort funded and administered by a Northern establishment; led, directed, and framed by two Northern students and centred on the elaboration of an idea proposed by them; undertaken in English; and happening, geographically, within the North?
Does a necessity come up for deliberately shaping RefLex approaches with respect to (i) the epistemologies, languages, theories, and ideas which can be privileged in structuring the inquiry and (ii) acutely aware or unconscious assumptions in regards to the nature of “improvement” and the positioning of North and South in relation to it?

On institutional design:

What want, if any, arises for deliberate institutional recalibration in mild of those implications? How may choices regarding epistemic priorities, language, management and authority, the bodily location of deliberation, and processes of decision-making be deliberately formed to handle the asymmetries recognized above?

The very fluidity and envisioned continuous reconstitution of RefLex – by means of successive cohorts of fellows – would permit for the iterative improvement of wealthy views and conclusions in reply to those foundational questions. It additionally guarantees to generate progressively deeper insights into the very expertise of searching for to use the Africa Constitution and into the relevance of its propositions for the sphere of regulation and for the “world South” past Africa. As such, RefLex stands to contribute substantively to the additional elaboration and refinement of the Africa Constitution argument itself.

Past RefLex, the proposed questions may additionally function a body to information the exploration of and distillation of learnings on a transformative collaboration mode in different related “North-South” analysis initiatives.

A proposed define for the best way ahead

To grasp this potential, three constants within the means of RefLex can be important. One is the necessity to create and shield – for every cohort – devoted and “protected” area to help the open reflection and reflexivity described above. The opposite is to determine parallel mechanisms to foster conversations between and, progressively, throughout cohorts. The third is to plan a cautious and rigorous methodology to distil, seize, monitor, and additional analyse the important thing strands of thought and understanding in addition to additional queries and features of inquiry rising over time. With the official launch of RefLex on 11 February 2026 – and given the significance the Centre locations on participating its personal observe – dialogue on putting in such parameters might start.

In doing so, RefLex might assist chart the potential for rebalancing “South-North” analysis relations that lies within the collaborative engagement, useful resource sharing, and leverage of Northern establishments – if carried out reflexively.