Impact Without Imposition: What Role for Northern Academics in the Global South?

(Illustration by iStock/sorbetto)

This year, our institute published several studies as part of the research project Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Global Digital Transformation (SET) based on activities in seven countries in the Global South. None of the studies were written by ourselves. With one exception, the authors were from the Global South and thus familiar with the local context. A study on the working conditions in Kenya’s gig economy, for example, was written by two African researchers, who not only surveyed hundreds of gig workers but also involved civil society and policy makers during a multi-stakeholder dialogue and a panel discussion in Nairobi. By enabling and facilitating such activities, we tried to achieve impact without imposition.          

While academics in the Global North increasingly focus on relevance, they still tend to neglect engaging with grand challenges for the Global South. When they do, they tend to fall into one of the following traps. One is to offer solutions for the Global South based on knowledge that was created in the Global North, and which lacks contextual relevance as a consequence. Another is to use the Global South to extract data to create knowledge, with both data and knowledge likely ending up locked up in universities or behind paywalls, with harmful consequences for the communities that should own the data.

When we started the SET project, we committed to a different approach: To leverage our resources and expertise to create impact without imposing our ideas on local communities. This raises the question: How can academics from the Global North have an impact without imposing their ideas and mindset on people in the Global South?

Below, we describe three principles, takeaways, and challenges for academics and changemakers interested in resolving this conundrum.

1. Create Conditions Conducive to Impact Without Imposition

Adopt a decolonial mindset. While not all researchers will be able to familiarize themselves with decolonial theory in depth, it is critical that researchers acknowledge the ongoing impacts of colonization and reflect on their own positions of power and privilege. In our project, for example, this was crucial when conducting research in Benin and Ghana as Europeans, given that West Africa has been especially impacted by the Atlantic slave trade whose consequences continue to shape the region to this day. Thus, we tried to adopt a position of humility when discussing the factors which inhibit sustainable entrepreneurship in Benin, being aware that many factors, such as the lack of regional integration, are amongst other things also a consequence of the Atlantic slave trade.

Integrate flexibility into grant agreements. When researchers apply for grants, they typically describe research goals, designs, and methods in great detail. This can be problematic, as researchers seldomly have the capacity to familiarize themselves with local contexts before receiving funding. While we followed the same logic, there was an agreement with our funders that we would adapt research goals and designs substantially based on local needs during the project. In our initial conversations with local partners, we learned that some of the phenomena we intended to focus on were less relevant than anticipated and changed course as a result. To facilitate adaptation, we recommend integrating some flexibility into the grant agreement, especially in cases in which funders may insist on following the grant agreement to the letter.

Participants discussing challenges associated with regulating Kenya’s gig economy during a multi-stakeholder dialogue in Nairobi on November 9, 2022. (Photo by Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society)

Create time and resource buffers. Most academics are used to juggling multiple research projects. However, conducting a research project in the Global South may consume substantially more time and energy. Impact without imposition requires learning about the culture and the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. Starting out, we underestimated these tasks, so we ended up with little room to breathe and felt inclined to simply offer solutions that were created elsewhere. Once we noted this sentiment, we reduced our involvement in other projects and prioritized creating impact with the SET project. Therefore, we recommend other academics embarking on similar endeavors to create a time buffer.

In addition to creating a time buffer, it is advisable to create a resource buffer. In light of the complexity of challenges such as climate change, involving stakeholders from various sectors is central to creating effective and sustainable solutions. Engaging the local ecosystem requires substantial resources that can vary according to local expectations. In several countries, we were surprised to learn there was an expectation to host dialogues and events in the city’s most prestigious locations such as five-star hotels. This consumed substantially more budget than anticipated.   

2. Engage With the Ecosystem to Make Local Context Central to the Research

Echoing the insight by other changemakers to start with what is locally relevant, we urge Global North researchers to invest the effort and time needed to understand local challenges and to develop research questions that can result in actionable outcomes. This in itself is a challenging task for researchers that are based in the Global North.    

Don’t rely only on the (academic) literature. Literature reviews are necessary, but they are insufficient to come up with research questions that are timely and locally relevant. First, the literature in general and the academic literature in particular is not always representative of current issues, because of the time it takes to write and publish research. Second, the academic literature can be an artifact of past funding priorities that tend to be global rather than local in nature. Third, there are language barriers. Even though English has become the dominant language in academia, it is far from the only language used to communicate findings.

Learn from a diverse set of local partners. One essential way to understand local needs is through local actors. We learned from our local partners, especially the Digital Transformation Centers (DTCs) that were implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation as well as through briefings from their political partners. In addition, we organized multi-stakeholder dialogues and public events to engage with the local ecosystem. In hindsight, we realized we could have dedicated more time in the design stage to engage with stakeholders such as local NGOs. This is because the DTCs and their political partners can at times be more focused on global than local issues. In Benin, for example, we focused on sustainable entrepreneurship. When talking to locals at the multi-stakeholder dialogues, we learned we did not sufficiently consider the role of informal entrepreneurship, despite the fact that Benin’s informal sector accounts for 85% of economic activity.

Panelists talking about the potential of AI for sustainable entrepreneurship in Benin during the country’s first AI conference in Cotonou, on July 7, 2022. (Photo by Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society)

Navigate the fine line between too much and too little input. During the multi-stakeholder dialogues we organized, we took the role of moderating group discussions. As a team, we had decided against actively expressing our views during the discussions to avoid imposing our ideas on participants. While well-intended, we realized after several dialogues that our approach actually created a hierarchical relationship between the participants and us. In the later dialogues, we shifted our approach towards one based on mutual learning.

3. Empower Local Researchers

It is paramount to involve researchers who are familiar with local contexts. First,  data collection is more challenging for Global North researchers in the Global South because the latter tend to have less reliable local networks and face language and cultural barriers. Second, Global North researchers often lack the contextual knowledge that is needed for data analysis—for example, the meaning of metaphors that is crucial for theorizing. Last but not least, locals with personal stakes are more likely to know what needs to be done.

The standard approach reduces local scholars to research assistants. The way local researchers are usually involved in academia is through research collaborations, in which researchers from the Global South are mainly responsible for data collection and are potentially involved in data analysis, less to not at all in the planning and writing process. The problem with this approach is that many important decisions are already made, including the research question, the key concepts to be explored, and variables to be measured, which essentially reduces researchers in the Global South to the role of research assistants.

Create a platform for local researchers. Looking for a different approach, we provided a platform for local researchers by commissioning studies directly to Global South researchers and by organizing research sprints, a format that involves bringing together a group of interdisciplinary and international researchers for several weeks or months to develop actionable knowledge for policy makers. This reduced the risk that we imposed our ideas on the problem, because the authors of the study would be responsible for decisions such as who to interview and how to interpret the data, while the open and collaborative format of the sprint enables the participants to adapt the research question as they see fit to the local context. While commissioning studies and organizing sprints have benefits, there are also challenges involved.       

A first challenge is to find suitable collaborators. While commissioning studies worked well in Benin, Ghana, and Kenya, we did not receive any applications from local researchers for a study in Indonesia on digital technologies for rainforest protection. One reason for this may have to do with the fact that the call for proposals was in English rather than Indonesian; another may have been that our local networks were relatively less established.

A second challenge involves evaluating and selecting candidates due to different criteria of worth. In the Global North, it has become standard to assess an academic’s merits based on publications in international peer-reviewed journals. However, some applicants did not have international publications, which made the process more complex and time-consuming.

A third challenge is navigating linguistic ambiguity. By that we mean dealing with the fact that concepts have different meanings for different people, shaped by their lived experiences. The concept of sustainability is a good example in this regard. For us, sustainable entrepreneurship was about entrepreneurs trying to address unmet social and environmental needs. However, the researcher who conducted the study on the topic framed the concept more as a way of making entrepreneurial business models durable. Thus, commissioning studies can entail a conversation to find common ground on definitional matters that can significantly impact the outcome of the research.

A fourth challenge is dealing with blurry professional identities. Take Vietnam, where researchers may also act as consultants to provide for their families, so they may consider participating in a research sprint to be consulting work that they expect to be paid for. We did not have a budget for this, since we thought it was sufficient to cover participants’ expenses including accommodation, food, and travel. In consequence, we only had one researcher from Vietnam and one from Cambodia taking part in the sprint, in addition to the participants from Germany, India, Mexico, and the US. In future sprints, we would consider offering compensation for participants in such contexts.

Impact Without Imposition

The road to impact but also imposition is paved with good intention. More engagement is certainly needed, but with some modifications to the current existing common model of working in—and not necessarily with or for—the Global South. The principles and takeaways outlined above help to re-think and change scholarly behavior in this regard towards an approach that creates a platform for academics in the Global South and the local communities they are part of. However, our approach can only be the beginning. An even more progressive approach would provide funding directly to research institutes and universities in the Global South, who would then involve Global North researchers as they see fit.

Read more stories by Georg von Richthofen & Ali Aslan Gümüsay.