Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

co²libri – Conceptual Collaboration: Living Borderless Research Interaction

 

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This research cooperation is seed funded in the framework of the Inaugural Call from the Berlin University Alliances (BUA) Center for Global Engagement. In the Center's program segment of “multi-stakeholder dialogue”, co2libri members receive financial support for one year, starting in autumn 2020. The funding is used for the implementation of various innovative activities and collaboration formats which all subscribe to the principle of dialogue on equal footing with scholars and activists based in the so-called global South, i.e. in formerly colonized regions. In a nutshell, co2libri aims at producing more adequate and more sensitive critical knowledge, and at applying a fresh view to approach, methods, and ethical standards. The group focuses on alternative frames of reference and theorizations of lived experiences. 

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What we do - As an interdisciplinary and transregionally oriented initiative, co2libri envisages a multicentric perspective ... read more

As an interdisciplinary and transregionally oriented initiative, co2libri envisages a multicentric perspective that integrates positions of Southern theory and praxis into the heart of our academic conversations. In this decentered research network cooperation, we are guided by a number of questions and concerns:

  • How can we best practice conceptual collaboration between scholars in the social sciences and humanities based in the global north and south?
  • What kind of collaborative visions and models of dialogical practice can we draw from, or conceptualize, and develop further – and how can we best go about in doing so?
  • How can scholars and engaged activists collaborate to address and redress existing imbalances and inequalities, in academic research, in higher education, and in public knowledge production and dissemination more widely?
  • And what kind of strategies can we envisage and make productive, towards a living dialogical practice of research collaboration and exchange between scholars and activists from global north and south?

 

At the basis of this is also the questions of how we can productively engage our existing relationships with colleagues and partners based in the south, also to reverse relational flows of knowledge production, and to learn from thinkers and theories as well as, potentially, from practitioners and activists. These are knowledge-related questions of high practical relevance, linked to different conceptual frameworks and intellectual histories as much as national and global politics, and different kinds of challenges of inequality feature prominently.

 

co2libri’s collaborative endeavor builds on long-standing active connections with partners in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Instead of setting an agenda from the north, it proposes to figure out ways forward through collaborative engagement, building on relationships of mutual trust. Using formats that facilitate substantial and open-ended discussion, we are re-thinking theory and method, academic practices, and research ethics, while keeping material inequalities in view.

 

We are working toward the implementation of various innovative activities and collaboration formats which all subscribe to the principle of dialogue on equal footing with scholars and activists based in the so-called global south. In a nutshell, co2libri aims at producing more adequate and more sensitive critical knowledge, and at applying a fresh view to approach, methods, and ethical standards. The group focuses on alternative frames of reference and theorizations of lived experiences. Hereby, the negotiation and formulation of what it means to take an adequate position, and a constructive role, by scholars based in the global north, within the current field of demands and expectations towards decolonizing and decentering scholarship, in dialogical exchange with academic partners based in the global south, is seen as a central task and obligation.

 

Logbook

Upcoming events:

 

  • 06.12.2021  - Negotiating Scholar-Activism and Divergent Positionalities                                    061221_infact.PNG

Djamila Ribeiro
(Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paolo - Brazil)

 'Myths around Brazilian Racism: a View through the Lens of Black Feminist Theory'

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Previous events:

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  • 02.11.2021

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  • 19.11.2021 EXPERT WORKSHOP

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Activities:

  • Affiliated student-initiated Working Group “Decolonizing Knowledge and Research”, supported by Nadine Heil
  • BA and MA Seminars on research ethics as well as special seminar sessions on de:postcolonial, feminist and decentred research approaches at IAAW in 2020-2021, coordinated by Andrea Fleschenberg, Rosa Castillo and Nadine Heil (affiliated with the Research Ethics Initiative of the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at IAAW)
  • Podcast Series (coming soon) 
  • ECR Working Group “Researching in Times of a Pandemic” with Lecture Series, Training Workshops and Publication of ECR Research Notes as special section in the open access journal South Asia Chronicle (forthcoming in late 2021), coordinated by Sarah Holz and Andrea Fleschenberg 

 

Principal and Associated Investigators – Who we are   

BUA-based Investigators:

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Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
 
Freie Universität zu Berlin, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Germany
Network-based & Associated Investigators

 

Outcomes – Follow Up 

Upcoming:

  • Discussion Paper Series (coming soon)
  • Podcast Series (coming soon)
  • Open Access Book Publication (coming soon)

 

Useful Links – Networking