Andrea Jimenez
email: a.jimenez@sheffield.ac.uk

Tony Roberts
email: t.roberts@ids.ac.uk

Decolonising Neo-Liberal Innovation: using the Andean philosophy of 'Buen Vivir' to reimagine innovation hubs

Keywords: Innovation, Epistemologies of the South, Decolonising, Buen Vivir

Innovation is increasingly portrayed as central to social and economic development. Models of innovation from the global North are often applied uncritically in the global South. Doing so may unwittingly silence indigenous knowledge, ways of knowing, and cultural values. Santos (2014) has argued that this form of epistemic violence is committed when actors from the global North are insufficiently mindful of 'Epistemologies of the South'. Neither Santos nor the authors of this paper believe that there is nothing of value to be learned from the global North -only that there is as much to be learned from the global South -and everything to be gained from a skillful combination of different ways of knowing. This theoretical paper proposes a future line of research to examine in what ways Epistemologies of the South might inform innovation processes to produce different outcomes. We use the example of innovation hubs and although we might have used the philosophies of Ubuntu from Southern Africa or Swaraj from India, in this paper we use the lens of Buen Vivir (living well) from Andean and Amazonian communities in South America to suggest that another innovation is possible.

Introduction

Over recent decades we have seen income inequality increased in every region [START_REF]World Inequality Lab[END_REF]. The number of African people living in poverty in 2018 is now 113 million more than it was in 1990 [2], and the dominant economic development model has proven to be ecologically unsustainable [START_REF] Kothari | Degrowth and Ecological Swaraj: Alternatives to sustainable development and the Green Economy[END_REF].

Innovation has variously been proposed as a way to reduce poverty, inequality and climate change [START_REF] Cozzens | Innovation in informal settings: reflections and proposals for a research agenda[END_REF]; [START_REF] Pansera | Frugal or Fair? The Unfulfilled Promises of Frugal Innovation[END_REF]. In the Sustainable Development Goals innovation is referred to as a 'crucial driver of economic growth and development' and is considered sufficiently important to feature explicitly in six different SDG targets 1 [6]. In the research discourse innovation is often presented as an ideologically neutral 'technical fix' divorced from any industry interests or political aims [START_REF] Ferguson | The Anti-politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho[END_REF] [START_REF] Pansera | Framing inclusive innovation within the discourse of development: Insights from case studies in India[END_REF]. Despite attempts to portray innovation as politically neutral, several decades of evidence from Science and Technology Studies (STS) research demonstrates that innovation processes generally reflect the dominant political and ideological values of innovators or societies in which they lived [START_REF] Mackenzie | The Social Shaping of Technology[END_REF]. From a development perspective innovation is defined as applying new tools or processes to address development challenges and unmet needs [10]. To achieve this, the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF have been establishing their own Innovation Labs. Moreover, the Global Innovation Fund2 , the Global Challenges Research Fund and a range of other funding agencies provided funding to a wide range of innovation initiatives, including more than 300 'innovation hubs' in Africa alone [11].

Innovation Hubs

Innovation hubs are places where technology entrepreneurs, experts and enthusiasts meet to collaborate on their latest apps, platforms and development projects [START_REF] Jiménez | Tech hubs, innovation and development[END_REF]. The authors' prior experience of long-term research based in innovation hubs gave rise to our research interest in whether hubs in the global South were too closely modelled on the global North template of Silicon Valley start-up culture, and if so whether this might lead to a lost opportunity to nurture indigenous approaches to innovation, as well as the risk of importing political and ideological values that drown out and silence local values and interests (See [START_REF] Roberts | Critical Agency in ICT4D[END_REF]; [START_REF] Jiménez | A Spatial Perspective of Innovation and Development: Innovation Hubs in Zambia and the UK[END_REF]). Other authors have been exploring similar aspects (for example, [START_REF] Avle | How methods make designers[END_REF]).

Innovation hub events in the global South often feature 'masterclasses' led by individuals or featuring methods from the global North -sometimes hosting venture capitalists or famous entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg [START_REF] Friederici | Hope and Hype in Africa's Digital Economy: The Rise of Innovation Hubs[END_REF]. Often, the hackathons and pitching events that they host, assess innovations in terms of whether they are patentable, monetisable, or scalable, and calculate the value of innovations as dollar return on investments. From this perspective technology and innovation hubs can be interpreted to be sites where the goal and measure is to become as much like the Silicon Valley (USA) as possible. This is evidenced by the label of Silicon Savannah, used to characterise the technology and innovation ecosystem in Kenya [START_REF] Gitonga | The past, present, and future of the 'Digital Nyika': how to fix an aircraft in flight[END_REF], thereby assimilating previous forms of mechanistic modernisation theory [START_REF] Escobar | Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World[END_REF].

This paper addresses the concern that if innovation approaches from the global North are applied uncritically in the global South, they may unwittingly subordinate indigenous knowledge, ways of knowing, and cultural values. This paper also makes the political and ecological argument that smuggling in growth-orientated neo-liberal development under the guise of innovation can be considered to be both neo-colonial as well as environmentally unsustainable. We use innovation hubs as an example of innovation processes in this paper because of our prior experience but hope that researchers and practitioners with other innovation experience will find resonance in other innovation settings. In this paper we remain with de Sousa Santos [START_REF] Sousa | Epistemologies of the South[END_REF] example of Buen Vivir (living well) from South America in order to argue that another innovation is possible.

Literature Review

Innovation is 'the process by which novelty is taken up and circulated in the public sphere' [START_REF] De Saille | Innovation for a steady state: a case for responsible stagnation[END_REF]. Scholars, practitioners and policy makers have focused on ways in which innovation can be improved, enhanced and diffused [START_REF] Srinivas | Developing countries and innovation: Searching for a new analytical approach[END_REF]. In the innovation for development literature authors often argue that innovation is central to economic growth and thus crucial to development [START_REF] Williams | The future of innovation studies in less economically developed countries[END_REF] and innovation is promoted as a development mechanism [START_REF] Krause | Innovation: The new Big Push or the Post-Development alternative?[END_REF]. Pansera & Owen [START_REF] Pansera | Framing inclusive innovation within the discourse of development: Insights from case studies in India[END_REF] argue that innovation for development approaches embody distinctive political dimensions, cultural values and normative worldviews, and that they often leave unproblematized implicit neo-liberal, individuated and market-oriented approaches. The National Systems of Innovation (NSI) approach, for instance, has been a dominant discourse [START_REF] Lundvall | -Å National innovation systems -analytical concept and development tool[END_REF] emphasising the interrelation of different actors as fundamental to strong national innovation ecosystems. In this process, authors have often focused on economic actors and institutions, exploring the role of NSI in competitive advantage and economic growth. More recently, there has also been a proliferation of innovation concepts that attempt to describe phenomena happening in resource-constrained environments to explain innovation phenomena. Terms like 'frugal innovation, 'reverse innovation', 'pro-poor innovation', 'Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) innovation', 'grassroots innovation', 'inclusive innovation' are most popular in the literature [START_REF] Zeschky | From Cost to Frugal and Reverse Innovation: Mapping the Field and Implications for Global Competitiveness[END_REF]. Although these concepts have expanded our understanding of innovation by focusing on the marginalised in society, they tend to still be framed within the dominant economic discourses albeit with some better focus on inclusivity. In this sense, even though these concepts advance our understanding of innovation in the global South, they still operate within a neoliberal paradigm.

Most innovation research is framed within an economic system that perpetuates growth [26] despite irrefutable evidence that perpetual growth is not possible on a finite planet [START_REF] Jackson | Prosperity without Growth: economics for a finite planet[END_REF]. The Sustainable Development Goals fail to address this inconvenient truth when they set continued growth as a key Global Goal (SDG8) and commit the international community to building innovation capacity (SDG 17) in order to achieve it. The next section shows how the underlying logic of neo-liberalism demands requires perpetual innovation in pursuit of the unattainable goal of perpetual growth.

Neoliberalism

Although there is no agreed definition of neo-liberalism, there is consensus that it "is built on deregulation, liberalization, privatization and ever tighter global integration" [START_REF] Crotty | Structural contradictions of the global neoliberal regime[END_REF]. In this paper we rely on the more expansive definition of Harvey [START_REF] Harvey | A Brief History of Neoliberalism[END_REF] that neoliberalism is an hegemonic ideology or a theory of political economy discourse that 'proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade'. In this respect, innovation is framed as key in improving efficiency and driving economies.

The neo-liberal paradigm also holds an underlying notion that economic liberalisation (freedom of market and trade) is a necessary step towards individual freedom. In this respect, Bourdieu [START_REF] Bordieu | The Essence of Neoliberalism[END_REF] argued that the neoliberal project was 'a programme of the methodical destruction of collectives' (pp. 95-96). This implies that individuals have moral priority and '[…] may not be limited by the community, common good or interest' [START_REF] Ikuenobi | African communal basis for autonomy and life choices[END_REF]. Neoliberalism then, encourages the individualisation of the social and the collective [START_REF] Ferge | The changed welfare paradigm: The individualization of the social[END_REF].

In neo-liberal theory, economic growth is portrayed as self-evidently desirable [START_REF] Türken | Making Sense of Neoliberal Subjectivity: A Discourse Analysis of Media Language on Self-development[END_REF], driven by the dynamism of individual entrepreneurs and by creative gales of technological destruction. Growth itself constitutes the goal of neoliberalism, overriding concerns for social equity or environmental sustainability [START_REF] Friman | No Limits: The 20th Century Discourse of Economic Growth[END_REF]. Despite neoliberalism being founded on the idea of freedom, the globalisation of the neoliberal project demonstrated its imposition in countries of the global South through coercive programs of structural adjustments [START_REF] Escobar | Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World[END_REF]. This took the form of 'modernisation' as the enforced adoption and imitation of economic and ideological approaches copied from 'developed countries'. The social, cultural, and structural forms stemming from Western societies were idealised and compared to the 'traditional' societies, seen as backward and as such in crucial need of modernisation [START_REF] Makki | Reframing development theory: the significance of the idea of uneven and combined development[END_REF].

One devastating effect of this modernisation process has been the exploitation of natural resources to industrialise and urbanise societies. To counteract the negative consequences of climate change, there have been attempts to manage the environment without stopping growth, with the introduction of concepts like 'green economy' and 'sustainable development' [START_REF] Kothari | Degrowth and Ecological Swaraj: Alternatives to sustainable development and the Green Economy[END_REF]. Furthermore, in the current era there has also been an attempt to step away from mechanistic modernisation by highlighting economic growth in Southern contexts, with examples like the rise of Asia and the increasing influence of the East in the world. However, it other contexts like South America and sub-Saharan Africa there is still the contentious push for recognising their own voice, given the pressure of modernisation patterns still experienced [START_REF] Kothari | Degrowth and Ecological Swaraj: Alternatives to sustainable development and the Green Economy[END_REF].

Neoliberal innovation for development

This dominant neoliberal paradigm is also framing the way innovation for development is conceptualised and practiced. There are two main characteristics of this framing. Firstly, there is a strong emphasis on funding disruptive innovation to drive economic growth [START_REF] Ojomo | Disruptive innovation: The most viable strategy for economic development in Africa[END_REF]. As such, innovation is often framed from an individualistic dimension, embracing the ideal entrepreneur as seeking profit maximisation. Secondly, innovation in the South is expected to mirror models and concepts from the North, following a path of uncritical modernisation. This amplifies the dominant worldview at the expense of other voices.

Rather than continuing to uncritically adopt and adapt neo-liberal concepts and theories of innovation from the Global North, this paper argues that it is important to also explore alternative conceptions of innovation, taking into account indigenous knowledges and values from the Global South. The next section details alternative frameworks known as epistemologies of the South [START_REF] Sousa | Epistemologies of the South[END_REF].

Epistemologies of the South

In this section we introduce the overarching notion of 'Epistemologies of the South', this will help to explain how and why a concept like Buen Vivir becomes relevant in our understanding of development and subsequently, innovation. Ever since colonial times, certain kinds of knowledges have been privileged as valid, consequently prioritising certain kinds of activities, and by extension have delegitimised and subordinated others [START_REF] Smith | Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples[END_REF]. This epistemic dimension has been referred by Aníbal Quijano [START_REF] Quijano | Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad[END_REF] as the "coloniality of power", and later described by Mignolo [START_REF] Mignolo | I am where I think: epistemology and the colonial difference[END_REF] as "the less visible side of modernity" (As cited in Bruman 2017, my translation). Moreover, this epistemological dimension has followed through to current context, as explained by Tuhai-Smith [START_REF] Smith | Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples[END_REF], '[…] although in the reframed discourse of globalisation.' (p.92).

This practice, of imposing a foreign knowledge as valid and diminishing indigenous knowledges is labelled by postcolonial scholars such as Spivak [START_REF] Spivak | Can the subaltern speak? Speculations on widow sacrifice[END_REF] as 'epistemic violence', which actively obstructs and undermine non-Western methods or approaches to knowledge as the Other. As explained by Theo [START_REF] Theo | What is Epistemological Violence in the Empirical Social Sciences?[END_REF], epistemic violence happens when '[…] theoretical interpretations regarding empirical results implicitly or explicitly construct the Other as inferior or problematic, despite the fact that alternative interpretations, equally viable based on the data, are available' (p.298). Freire refers to a similar phenomenon as 'cultural invasion', where '[…] invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, in disrespect of the latter's potentialities, they impose their own view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression' [START_REF] Freire | Pedagogy of the oppressed[END_REF]. At the heart of this understanding of imposing Western knowledge into other contexts is the notion that such type of knowledge has become hegemonic and dominant, and other types of knowledges are subverted and portrayed as inferior.

It their substantive senses, epistemologies of the South replace the dominance of Western ideas by a notion of 'interculturality', from which Western knowledge is not rejected but seen as one among many options [START_REF] Gudynas | Buen vivir: germinando alternativas al desarrollo[END_REF]. As a way to do this, Santos, suggests we engage in a plural dialogue between different systems of knowledge and between different epistemologies, without pre-established hierarchies [START_REF] Sousa | Epistemologies of the South[END_REF].

The next section introduces one epistemology of the global South, which guides the framework for this analysis.

Buen Vivir

Buen Vivir is a discursive 'work-in-progress' resulting from the cross-pollination of traditional indigenous knowledges and the interpretive and articulating work by scholars and political leaders [START_REF] Acosta | El Buen Vivir en el camino del post-desarrollo. Una lectura desde la Constitución de Montecristi, Fundación Friedrich Eber[END_REF]. Indigenous ontologies and traditions do not involve an idea of progress as a linear unfolding of history, nor do they perceive that wellbeing is associated with ideals of individuation where humankind is separate from nature [START_REF] Querejazu | Encountering the Pluriverse: Looking for Alternatives in Other Worlds[END_REF]. Rather they see the world as a plurality of stories happening alongside each other, with no single totalising narrative. Buen Vivir scholars and activists suggest that we reframe our understanding of the world from the existence of a 'uni-verse' to a 'pluri-verse', which is defined as "[…] understanding that reality is constituted not only by many worlds, but by many kinds of worlds, many ontologies, many ways of being in the world, many ways of knowing reality, and experimenting those many worlds" [START_REF] Querejazu | Encountering the Pluriverse: Looking for Alternatives in Other Worlds[END_REF].

Scholars saw an alternative to neoliberalism and the growth paradigm that was characterising the way development was implemented in Latin America, enhancing inequalities and destroying ecosystems. The consequence of discussions between indigenous communities and scholars has led to a definition on Buen Vivir as a concept under construction, shifting away from the mind-set of production and consumption and against growth-based development [START_REF] Giovannini | Indigenous community enterprises in Chiapas: a vehicle for buen vivir?[END_REF]. Instead, Buen Vivir values aspects that benefit the community, with strong environmentally-oriented ideas. This suggests that some indigenous communities would prioritise values of collectivism, environmental justice and reciprocity.

Buen Vivir introduces three novel ideas: first, it is elaborated by peoples who have been historically marginalised [START_REF] Giovannini | Indigenous community enterprises in Chiapas: a vehicle for buen vivir?[END_REF]; second, well-being is not conceived in its individualistic Western sense, but rather in the context of a community [START_REF] Huanacuni | Vivir/Vivir Bien. Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indigenas (CAOI)[END_REF]; and third, the natural environment can be conceptualised as a subject of rights and therefore cannot be subjected to market logics [START_REF] Mamani Ramírez | dureza de " estar estando " y dulzura de " ser siendo[END_REF]. In more practical terms, Buen Vivir suggests a transition from a capitalist mode of production to a social and communal economy. This economy would take consideration for the constraints of the environment and where surpluses would be invested back into the community [START_REF] Prada-Alcoreza | Vivir as a model for State and Economu[END_REF].

Attempts to include Buen Vivir into policy have been proposed, even though they not existed without challenges and contradictions [START_REF]Development for a postneoliberal era? Sumak kawsay, living well and the limits to decolonisation in Ecuador[END_REF]. For instance, Buen Vivir was introduced to the Ecuadorian Constitution during the government of president Rafael Correa in 2007, mentioned at least 25 times in the Constitution and subsequently integrated into 3 national development plans [START_REF] Williford | Buen vivir as policy: challenging neoliberalism or consolidating state power in Ecuador[END_REF].

Authors have discussed various challenges contradictions of this experience. Williford [START_REF] Williford | Buen vivir as policy: challenging neoliberalism or consolidating state power in Ecuador[END_REF] summarises them into a continued reliance on extractivist methods, the centralising of power and silencing of indigenous voices, and the shift from depending on the World Bank and IMF to China. However, authors have also highlighted the positive effects this experience has, including rejecting a neoliberal definition of development, strengthening regional ties in Latin America and visibilising the voices of indigenous peoples. The experience of Ecuador demonstrated that Buen Vivir can become co-opted as a discourse, without much change. Authors explain that the structural preconditions for the implementation of Buen Vivir at a nation level are not in place yet [START_REF] Beling | Discursive synergies for a "great transformation" towards sustainability: pragmatic contributions to a necessary dialogue between human development, degrowth, and Buen vivir[END_REF]. However, other authors argue that the way in which Buen Vivir has been incorporated in government initiatives is dialogical, and as such the implications should be measured by its contribution to destabilising dominant existing cognitive and cultural templates, and by, most importantly, showing that it is possible to explore alternative ways of living than the neoliberal one suggests [53] [3].

Buen Vivir resembles aspects from other concepts developed elsewhere. For instance, it has been related to the concept of degrowth, developed mainly by European scholars to critique the growth paradigm, suggesting instead values of 'sharing', simplicity, conviviality and care [26]. Furthermore, they also share commonalities with indigenous concepts that have been historically part of other cultures in the Global South. For instance, Swaraj, developed in India which refers to self-reliance and self-governance [START_REF] Kothari | Radical ecological democracy: a path forward for India and beyond[END_REF] [3] and Ubuntu in Africa, which emphasises human mutuality [START_REF] Msila | Decolonizing knowledge for African's Renewal: Examining African Perspectives And Philosophies[END_REF]. Even though they stem from different contexts and are based on different traditions, scholars have demonstrated the similarities of such concepts in terms of their rejection to individualism and growth without consideration of the environment. Furthermore, they also share in common the fact that they often arise from traditionally marginalised groups [START_REF] Kothari | Degrowth and Ecological Swaraj: Alternatives to sustainable development and the Green Economy[END_REF]. In this sense, Buen Vivir, as an epistemology of the South, recognises the need to account for the diversity of the world and the urge for more intercultural understanding, although it critiques the viewpoint that theories produced in the global North are best equipped to account for the social, political and cultural realities of the South [START_REF] Sousa | Epistemologies of the South[END_REF].

In summary, Buen Vivir is a work-in-progress presented as an alternative to development. It does not aim to become a dominant, hegemonic ideology because it is based in the recognition of multiple perspectives coexisting. It proposes that we replace values of individualism and growth, without consideration of the environment, with values of solidarity, reciprocity, complementarity, harmony and interdependence.

Analysis

Having introduced the concept of Buen Vivir as an alternative to the dominant neoliberal view, this section will establish the distinctive elements of neoliberal and Buen Vivir philosophy; to then describe what features innovation would have under each paradigm. We distinguish three themes emerging from our review of both paradigms, the ontology, concerned with the nature of reality and what there is to know about the world; the ideology, understood as distinctive set of discursive themes and standpoints and finally, ethics, as what is considered to be good and valued. We recognise that these elements form part of a complex reality, yet for analytical purposes they are being separated here.

Neoliberal vs Buen Vivir

Table 1 presents a summary of the key aspects of a neoliberal innovation paradigm in contrast with a Buen Vivir innovation paradigm. In the neoliberal paradigm, the ontology functions around an individualistic worldview, that is the idea of individual freedom to set and pursue one's own goals. This type of individualism 'hence puts a claim on the nature of human beings, on the way they live their lives and their relation to society' [START_REF] Robeyns | The Capability Approach: a theoretical survey[END_REF] (p.17). Furthermore, linked to the notion of individualism is the understanding that it is individual economic interests and overall economic growth. By adopting this worldview, material resources exist in function to individuals, and not the other way around. As a consequence, the environment is perceived to be at the service of pursuing individual freedom and therefore subsumed to an individual's path to achieving his or her own goals.

Given that this is the worldview adopted, then anything that benefits individuals constitutes part of the ideology. The environment becomes a commodity, that has economic value and that is subordinated to the advancement of human interests. This means that it is imperative to produce benefits for individuals in their quest to satisfy what they perceive as needs and desires. Furthermore, what is considered as ethical is that people perceive 'freedom' to achieve their own goals, being them the primary point of concern. If the environment is an impediment for one's own perception of wellbeing, then it is subordinated, commodified, transformed and in some cases destroyed to achieve individual success.

By contrast, from a Buen Vivir's ontological perspective, the individual is only a part of a collective, of species, non-human and of different peoples in other contexts. In this sense, it is not possible to separate the individual from its interdependence with others, because everybody and everything is connected. This means that it is not possible to subordinate the environment and perceive it as a commodity.

This way of looking at the world is translated into an ideology that relies on strong environmental ethics, collective benefits and a strong spiritual and affective rationality. The main logic therefore looks out for what process would provide a better outcome for everyone, rather than an individual. It also rejects a market-based logic that may have detrimental effects in the environment and instead supports models that would benefit it. In this sense, it would support alternative ways to being, producing and obtaining resources, one that first and foremost is in harmony with the environment and with others. It would also imply that the earnings of a particular resource would be shared amongst everyone.

Neoliberal Innovation vs Buen Vivir Innovation

Following the neoliberal paradigm, innovation adopts an individualistic form, framed around the notion of individual wellbeing. Stories of individual 'innovators' becoming billionaires would be valued as a heroic achievement. An innovation would be considered a novelty that can be patented or privatised, and there is a need to promote more development of such novelties. Finally, scaling would be appropriate to reduce costs and promote value for money.

By following the Buen Vivir paradigm, then innovation takes a collective form that would support mutual respect for each other and the natural world. Collective processes would be valued and innovation would be effectively benefiting the commons rather than individuals. Appropriateness would be valued over the costs and it would aim for producing positive effects for as many as possible.

Neoliberal Innovation Hubs vs Buen Vivir Innovation Hubs

As already mentioned, our previous research centred in understanding the role of innovation hubs in development. In such work we have argued that there is an expectation that hubs will promote economic growth. In this paper we present some characteristics of a hub, framed in a neoliberal context.

A neoliberal innovation hub would prioritise innovations that are patentable, for instance mobile applications that can be monetised. Furthermore, it will seek to promote innovations that are investable, to attract angel investors or other types of investors. It will seek to do this in a dynamic and efficient way, and often host hackathons and events that seek to develop cool/interesting ideas. As a result, innovations that are perceived to have monetary value would be framed to scale.

In contrast, a Buen Vivir innovation hub, if it ever existed, might reasonably be expected to have a strong focus on innovation for collective well-being. Such hubs might emphasise collaborative process and prioritise inclusive innovation. In this sense, rather than focusing on whether an innovation will be scalable and investable, it would prioritise innovation that is environmentally just, that include all voices and that contributes to living well, rather than making a profit. It is important to note that, just as the aforementioned example of Ecuador, an attempt to integrate Buen Vivir into practice will be confronted by several tensions and contradictions. Here, we do not intend to assume that this will be a smooth process, rather a dialectical one. More research is needed to see the feasibility of this.

Conclusion

In this paper we counterposed existing neo-liberal innovation with an imagined alternative approach to innovation informed by the values of Buen Vivir. We do so because we see value in imagining innovation otherwise and in reflecting the worldviews of the people that they are intended to benefit. Furthermore, we explored alternatives around innovation which pushed a neoliberal agenda (of which uncontrolled growth is one element).

By adopting this alternative perspective, we have attempted to provide a starting point for problematizing neoliberal innovation and opening a thought-space for considering new possibilities. We have suggested that another innovation, one informed by the values and worldview of Buen Vivir might prioritise collective, ethical, ecological and culturally sensitive innovation that contributes to the common well-being.

We recognise how difficult it would be to actually transform the neoliberal ideas around innovation and development. The example of Ecuador show that we are far from achieving a real transformation with the adoption of indigenous knowledges. This makes us wonder, as [START_REF] Williford | Buen vivir as policy: challenging neoliberalism or consolidating state power in Ecuador[END_REF] (p. 110) asks, "Is maintaining western notions of development in practice while investing in the social sector a first step in the process of moving away from the modernist paradigm? Or is the commitment to buen vivir principles in this particular case only superficial?" The answers to these questions should encourage future research.

Future research should put this in action to see in what ways innovations/tech hubs can produce values of environmental ethics, collective benefits and a strong spiritual and affective rationality, thereby promoting an alignment with such worldviews. The inclusion of indigenous viewpoints (like Buen Vivir) should not just be instrumental, it should be epistemological and ontological. In our view, the Western (neoliberal) approach to innovation represents only one possible approach among others, and we should therefore accept the possibility of a plurality of legitimate paradigms around innovation and its impact in our societies. In this sense, in a world with increasing inequality, huge environmental and ecological risks, 'Is another innovation possible?'.

1

  Innovation in included in SDG targets 8.2, 8.3, 9.5, 9b, 17.6 and 17.8.

Table 1 .

 1 Neoliberal Paradigm vs Buen Vivir Paradigm (Source: authors)

	Neo-Liberal				Buen Vivir
	Ontology				Ontology
	Individual (others out there)	Collective, connected, related,
	Independent				Interdependent, mutuality
	Environment	(out	there)	as	Environment as part of us
	resource					Ideology
	Ideology				Needs-based cooperativism
	Market-based capitalism		Collective benefits
	Private profit				Logic of shared interests
	Market logic				Environmental as part of us -
	Environment as private resource	Pachamama
	Goal	of	economic	growth	Goal of collective living well (de-
	Ethics					growth)
	Individual self-interest			Ethics
	Distribution according to means	Collective shared interest
						Distribution according to needs

https://globalinnovation.fund/


Munyaradzi Mawere

Gertjan Van Stam
email: gertjan@vanstam

Research in Africa for Africa? Probing the Effect and Credibility of Research Done by Foreigners for Africa

Keywords: Foreign researchers, Africa, coloniality

This paper probes research being carried out by researchers foreign to Africa. From an assessment of decennia of research, we address the many and varied ways in which the work of foreign researchers, often from countries with unresolved colonial baggage, cast their normalising shadows over African realities. From experiences in Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others, through the exposit of the complex and expansive array of influences and coloniality, we paint a picture how foreign researchers benefit from enshrined and ongoing practices that dominate research scenes. These practices depreciate African research and development done by Africans, in Africa for utilisation in Africa. We propose the need to mainstream decoloniality and communiversity as to affect the primacy of African researchers researching in, on and for Africa.

Introduction

Research in Africa, as the production of knowledge itself, is political. It is political because more often than not, research in Africa is carried out by foreign researchers whose objectives are sometimes not only biased but nefarious. This situation renders research in, on, and for Africa by foreign researchers suspicious and problematic.

In this paper, we probe research for Africa by researchers flying in from outside Africa by reframing such research within understandings of stigmatisation and discrimination. These vices follow each other in social processes that can only be understood in relation to broader notions of power and domination. In this probing, we move beyond narratives of research collaborations being portrayed as mostly ahistorical, apolitical, and non-racial. Negating histories, power distances, and diverse epistemologies are part of a panoptical and normalising situation that Bert Olivier [START_REF] Olivier | Truth, Power, Intellectuals and Universities[END_REF] shows to be part of an ongoing colonisation of universities by neo-liberal or capitalistic approaches.

The authors are members of communities in rural and urban areas of Southern Africa, involved in various research works in natural sciences and the humanities. The research incorporates the implementation and effects of Information and Communication Technologies in Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, on a daily basis. In this work, we engage with local, national and international communities and researchers (in that order). In this paper, we reflect on our experiences in operational research collaborations, conference visits, and academic-administrative communications encountered in over ten consecutive years of research practice in Africa.

We note that foreign researchers in Africa are often closely related to:  countries or institutes that were benefitting from colonial power meddling  countries that are still connected to colonialism, in fact, bolster neo-colonialism  countries or institutes that never have said sorry for colonialism they initiated and perpetuated on Africa  institutes and corporate businesses that, in fact, perpetuate super-colonialism, being the scaled-up colonial practice of subjugation of other people and groups for the gain of colonial agents [START_REF] Van Stam | The Coming-of-Age of Super-Colonialism[END_REF]  dominant normative epistemologies that do not align with the dynamic and integrative epistemologies that are common in Africa.

We recognise a stigma that affects work by African researchers. Often, their work is subalternised in processes where foreign researchers waltz in and impose what they want Africans to do. Tyler and Slater [START_REF] Tyler | Introduction: Rethinking the sociology of stigma[END_REF] call for the unearthing of the underlying conditions that create stigma -the 'why' and 'for whose benefit'. There are (perceived) power distances, asymmetries and powerful framings that subjugate and label African researchers and their work [START_REF] Van Greunen | Review of an African Rural Internet Network and related Academic Interventions[END_REF]. Further, researchers from foreign realms have direct access to, and use, industries that are local to their environment. However, those non-African industries are practically unapproachable for African researchers. Subsequently to data-collection, foreign researchers often (mostly?) appropriate the data and take it abroad. Data is not only used in objectification of the African situation. It provides advantages to foreigners to harvest information and turn data into knowledge and, subsequently, seek rent. Wa Thiongo'o [START_REF] Thiong'o | Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature[END_REF] and Nhemachena et al. [START_REF] Nhemachena | The Notion of the "Field" and the Practices of Researching and Writing Africa: Towards Decolonial Praxis[END_REF], among others, show how such knowledge is deployed to work against the people that have been researched. The misappropriation of data and information has compromised the quality, validity and legitimacy of research on Africa by foreign researchers, especially those linked in with Africa's former colonisers. Although the local decisions on research ethics must supersede any foreign body, in practice, local ethics may be omitted, ignored or overridden by ethics review meetings outside of Africa.

A persistent stream of research outputs presented by foreign researchers about Africa for Africa subalternates local, African researchers. This supports an epistemicide of African meaning-makings. Owusu [START_REF] Owusu | Ethnography of Africa: the usefulness of the useless[END_REF] argues, "the validity of African ethnographies and researches by foreigners, have often been compromised due to an over-reliance on theoretical work from elsewhere. Actual evidence available in the field has frequently been disregarded, while the writing flair of the ethnographer has often been valued more than ethnographic evidence." Similarly, Mamdani [START_REF] Mamdani | The importance of research in a university[END_REF] laments that Africans are seen as harvesters of information only. He "urge[s] to examine the processes of power and profit". We add here that these processes are complex and require intellectual rigour.

This paper critically interrogates the effect and credibility of research in, on, and for Africa by foreign researchers. We focus on communiversity counter to the dominance of university to destabilise a normative epistemology that bifurcates between subject-object and the researcher-researched narratives, paradigms dominant in academia.

2

The coloniality of research in Africa

Gonzales et al. [START_REF] Gonzalez Perez | All for the Africans but nothing by the Africans? Analysis of the contribution of African HIV research institutions in the IAS 2017 conference[END_REF] show that in HIV health research in Africa, foreign research institutions and international NGOs are responsible for almost 60% of the research.

Being sensitised by their observation, we critically analysed the evidence presented at the prestigious International Aids Society meeting (IAS) in 2017 to quantify the African contributions. South Africa was responsible for 15% of the research while the input from African researchers outside of South Africa was a paltry 19%. These numbers show a clear dominance of foreign researchers presenting views, and normalising, a disease that disproportionally hits the African continent, affecting millions of people.

The unavailability of research outputs from Africa resonates with Geldof's (2010) observation on the dearth of literature on ICT in Africa by Africans on the continent. In her study on literacy and ICT in Ethiopia and Malawi, Geldof [START_REF] Geldof | Literacy and ICT: Social Constructions in the lives of Low-literate Youth in Ethiopia & Malawi[END_REF] noted how she found little literature that pays explicit attention to the positionality of foreign researchers compared to local researchers or how this impacts the research process as a whole. Her writings and similar research papers, however, seem to narrow down issues to language barriers and cultural misunderstandings only. For instance, in their review of 'non-technical aspects' of information and communication technology (ICT) in international development, Kemppainen et al. [START_REF] Kemppainen | Development Projects and ICT: A Review of Non-Technical Aspects[END_REF] did not show any sensitivity towards 'who researches' what and where. Not surprisingly, they deduced that 'the alignment with international political and development agenda' is crucial for 'improving ICT oriented development projects', something we contest in this paper. Of course, there could be reports addressing issues we mention in this paper. However, when paywalls guard such documents, they are rendered inaccessible and void to African researchers like us.

ICT research in Africa appears to be Eurocentric, colonial and hegemonic. It remains undergirded and trapped in what Ndlovu-Gatsheni [START_REF] Ndlovu-Gatsheni | The Entrapment of Africa within the Global Colonial Matrices of Power[END_REF] and others regard as the snares of a colonial matrix of power and dominance. In this matrix, foreign researchers dominate the terrain of research even where research is on Africa, carried out in Africa, and framed to be for Africa. This domination of foreign researchers is coloniality at its best as it implies an illusion of freedom and perpetuation of colonial gestures.

We experienced that foreign researchers position themselves as the main actors and gatekeepers in connections with funding partners. Such partners often demand 'leadership from a Western partner' or 'technical assistance' with a push to involve Westerners for a benefit for their (non-African) industries. This appetite for foreign control is part of concepts like Public Private Partnerships (PPP), and a 'new normal' culture of universities forced to follow neoliberal schemes that demand marketisation. This marketisation relies on ideologies heralding the benefits of corporatisation, commercialisation, and privatisation of education and research [START_REF] Czerniewicz | Negotiating the 'new normal': How decision makers in higher education perceive marketisation in the sector[END_REF]. In PPPs, Western-based corporate partners often look over the shoulders of researchers, seeking rent by levering market powers and first entry advantages. In this scramble, humanitarian aid or corporate responsibility programs are being used to facilitate market entry for companies [START_REF] Masaka | Why Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is Morally Questionable[END_REF]. These capitalistic processes result in weaponised research endeavours that fuel the apparent insensitivity and power-laden manners in which foreign researchers interact in Africa. As a result, the outcomes, or research collaborations, mostly negate and defy the loud voices demanding epistemic liberation and research independence which have become recurrent in Africa and elsewhere since the beginning of decolonisation project in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Such observations warrant serious rethinking and reconsideration if research in and on Africa by foreign researchers is to pass the rigour and logic of social and epistemic justice in objective research. Therefore, we argue for a communiversity instead of the dominant university narrative where those at the latter are purported to be sole knowers, knowledge producers and custodians of knowledge.

The powerhouse of coloniality in research work for Africa

Quijano [START_REF] Zembylas | Decolonizing Higher Education Pedagogies: Good Intentions Are Not Enough[END_REF] presents coloniality as a system that defines the organisation and dissemination of epistemic, material and social resources in ways that reproduce modernity's imperial projects. To this understanding, Maldonado-Torres [START_REF] Maldonado-Torres | On the Coloniality of Being. Contributions to the development of a concept[END_REF] adds that "coloniality refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labour, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations." These patterns of power remain standing in contemporary African states in the name of the so-called modernity, which for many critical scholars is an extension of colonialism and a manifestation of coloniality. Grosfoguel [START_REF] Grosfoguel | Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality[END_REF], for instance, argues that "coloniality and modernity constitute two sides of a single coin. The same way as the European industrial revolution was achieved on the shoulders of the coerced forms of labour in the periphery, the new identities, rights, laws, and institutions of modernity such as nation-states, citizenship and democracy were formed in the process of colonial interaction with, and domination/exploitation of, non-Western people." Similarly, Zembylas [START_REF] Zembylas | Decolonizing Higher Education Pedagogies: Good Intentions Are Not Enough[END_REF] brings coloniality and modernity together. He regards coloniality as the underlying logic that places peoples and knowledge into a classification system such that all that is European is valorised while all that is non-Western is despised or condemned. The colonial matrix of power and knowledge, therefore, serves only a small portion of the global society -the elite -that benefits from the dominant and hegemonic Eurocentric belief systems that regarding epistemology implies a 'one size that fits all'. Coloniality, modernity, and capitalism thus go hand-in-hand -they have the same underlying philosophy. The #Rhodesmustfall movement sparked a renewed interest in decolonising higher education (and thus research) in South Africa [START_REF] Nyamnjoh | #RHODESMUSTFALL. Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa[END_REF] and in Africa in general. In contemporary times, in line with political realities of interest in the continuing colonial meddling and the narrative of an African renaissance, a growing realm of African presidents are highlighting local agency. They advocate wholesomely rejection of foreign aid as an agent of geopolitical meddling. Former African statesmen like Mbeki (of South Africa) and Mugabe (of Zimbabwe) have, throughout their history as presidents, been critical of foreign aid which they consistently criticised as agents of imperial powers.

Nyamnjoh [START_REF] Nyamnjoh | Communication Research and Sustainable Development in Africa: The Need for a Domesticated Perspective[END_REF] links an ideology of modernism to research. He describes how the demand for modernism and its promises have been the main engine for methodological import from outside of Africa. He questions how, given its apparent result in decennia of underdevelopment, related research practices have continued in Africa. He states "modernisation has survived more because it suits the purposes of its agents than because of its relevance to understanding the African situation. Those who run international development programmes along the Western model inspired by Modernisation Theory, "are not interested in challenge, stimulation and provocation at any level". They want their programmes to go on without disturbance and would only select as researchers or accept only those research questions and findings that confirm their basic assumptions on development in Africa." [START_REF] Nyamnjoh | Communication Research and Sustainable Development in Africa: The Need for a Domesticated Perspective[END_REF].

The Africa failing narrative which appears persistent in literature has resulted in a discourse of deficiency and incompetence, framing African research and researchers as lacking academic and professional resource. Regarding research, it is a discourse that partly explains the situation in which Africa finds itself today.

Burawoy [START_REF] Burawoy | The Extended Case Method[END_REF] shows how positive science tries to negate power influence, an effort that, in environments outside of the dominant power-that-be (and, most probably also within) can be considered futile. It was Fanon [START_REF] Fanon | The Wretched of the Earth[END_REF] who revealed the effects of colonial subjectivation. He describes psychological trauma being caused by the instilling of negative pictures. Such injury is caused early in a learning environment saturated by 'white' supremacy that does not value (and actively devalues) persons of colour. The result is psychological colonisation through an imposed racist phenomenology that seeks to imprint a sense of inferiority in the minds of people of colour. Further, Fanon shows how, through those interactions -with histories and within the material world as well as ideas -the source of the matter becomes acutely exposed. Fanon actively rejects the idea that amendments to the local realities should come from input from the outside. Such input, he argues, should be rejected.

4

The decolonisation of relationships and common sense

The African realities and their negotiations with non-African realities are set in structural narratives and structuring discourse and make their appearances through paradigms and epistemologies. They have been influenced, and are shaped, through perceptions of time, view on histories, geographies, religious, political and economic relationships. These are all social processes. Foreign research in Africa, with dominance and imperial gestures therein, has a long and questionable history. For example, African anthropologists discovered some gross mistranslations and misinterpretations of oral traditions in texts from accounts about African culture by

Western anthropologists [START_REF] Appiah-Thompson | The Politics of Researching Africa: The Quality of Anthropo-Historical and Linguistic Data in African Studies[END_REF]. Others have pointed to the existence of a 'white saviour' syndrome.

African study centres in Europe started as research institutes to support colonial conquest in Africa and elsewhere [START_REF] Van Stam | Decolonising Science: Switching the Paradigm to 'Community[END_REF]. However, it is not necessarily the social cognitive understanding that informs us why the contemporary situation is the way it is. The questioning of foreign researchers performing research in, on and for Africa is not a problem of a sub-set in ICT4D, nor limited to any field of study. Although the contemporary situation makes collaboration and cooperation difficult and lopsided, these are not contentions between individuals. They are the result of structures in society that have grown to be super-colonial. They are the continuation of an orientalistic, imperial academy that continues to benefit from the ongoing situation as the recipient of data, information, existing powers to create knowledge and to make a living out of it for its (Western) workforce. No wonder, that esteemed Ugandan researcher Mahmood Mamdani [START_REF] Mamdani | The importance of research in a university[END_REF] cynically noted that in research collaborations Africa could only solicit for the crumbs as hunters and gatherers of raw data, as native informants who collect and provide empirical data for processing in West, and the empowerment of the elite.

The Burundian scientist, Bigirimana [START_REF] Bigirimana | Beyond the thinking and doing dichotomy: integrating individual and institutional rationality[END_REF][START_REF] Bigirimana | Patterns of Human Knowing in the Information Society. A Philosophical Study of the Epistemological Implications of the Information Revolution[END_REF] describes how a normative epistemology introduced from an externalised knowledge is presented as authoritative because it is positioned as indubitable, infallible and incorrigible. This positioning aligns with Burawoy's [START_REF] Burawoy | The Extended Case Method[END_REF] assessment of a positive science that relies on the '4R's', being representative, reactive, reliable and replicable. Both authors problemise these approaches as harbouring dichotomies and removed from the complexity of power. The use of the amended methods as in post-positivism and constructivisticinterpretivistic and critical-ideological methods seem not to deal with the outset of regarding knowledge as existing separate of the knower, and thus as being available 'to be harvested'. The results of any of such method are further problematised by their dominant use, being focused on the individual, in line with a long history of objectifying Africa, Africans and African realities. A consistent framing of 'individuals' and reflecting on his effectiveness or self-actualisation have set how measures of success are being defined. Subsequently, in line with the Adagio of 'what gets measured gets done', conceptualisation of technologies and reports on their implementation are set to echo such a discourse of 'success'.

Indirectly, the Ghanaian Annan stood against such individualism. Preceding his passionate arguments for democracy, he commented on the politic of human beings stating that "Man is born, lives and dies as a member of a community and the affairs of that community are therefore his and vice-versa." [START_REF] Annan | The Crisis of Democracy[END_REF] However, dominant neoliberal anthropocentric approaches continue to put 'the individual' at the centre of attention. Such centrality supports divisions, as it pitches 'one-against-the-other' in a competitive world, allowing foreign researchers to research in and on Africa without being an integral part and member of the community in which the research takes place. Individualism, also, strives in dichotomies, where opposing and mutually exclusive positions are assigned to thinking and doing. Bifurcations undergird the dungeons of scientism or culturism. The resulting fights over boundaries have taken away the academic attention to the value of altogether different and integrated ways of knowing, although there are clear signals of their existence in non-Western literature or counter-narratives.

Is it, therefore, that the research cooperations in ICT4D have little to show as for societal impact? Do we apply the right lenses [START_REF] Gomez | ICT Evaluation: Are We Asking The Right Questions?[END_REF]? We highlight here that the sociopolitical context puts up severe challenges to accost inherited and super-colonial practices and structures that have been purposely planted to dominate. To make matters worse, the (mostly western-based) collectors of data get more and more powerful. Their platforms are regarded to have accumulated much value, their foreign based and led research networks continue to measure and control. The relatively limited impact of ICT4D might well be related to these inherent flaws and the limitations because of theoretical and methodological scarcity leading to an echochamber of lopsided attention to foreign, Western epistemology. The subalternising of African researchers and their agency to study their environment (like Western researchers do in their Western environments), is part of what Bourdieu [START_REF] Bourdieu | Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market[END_REF] called 'symbolic violence'. Therefore, the effect of foreign researchers must be placed in meso and macro socio-cultural structure and power, especially as in the capitalistic scheming of 'the market'. Western researchers are often well embedded in the rhetoric of (the Western rendering of) modernity as a means to salvation for development or poverty alleviation. This hegemony limits the potential of epistemic disobedience [START_REF] Mignolo | Introduction: The Global South and World Dis/Order[END_REF] that can shed light on African life, the varied ways of knowing and how to institutionalise them.

For fruitful research for Africa in Africa, there is a need to thoroughly understand the local epistemologies by living-the-life and gleaning inputs from local, African philosophies. Although put outside of the limelight, often tough to access, and relatively under-researched, among others, the studying of African cultural heritages provides narratives on how meaning-making is lived in a community. The vocabularies of knowing in African environments present a gateway to understanding how many Africans sustain their cultural identities against the (often technology enabled) onslaught of orientalism, imperialism, and colonialism that fuelled Africa's disenfranchisements for over 500 years. There is little evidence of foreign researchers in ICT4D showing sensitivity to incorporate these perspectives. African epistemologies are dynamic and integrative, understanding knowing as an act of the knower and knowledge being a quadrichotomy of emotional, intellectual, evaluating and pragmatic forms [START_REF] Bigirimana | Beyond the thinking and doing dichotomy: integrating individual and institutional rationality[END_REF]. Method, of course, is subject to the epistemic base and philosophy of knowing, and, in the case of the dynamic and integrative epistemology of the local community, methodological approaches must be aligned with the level of consciousness one is focussing on.

There appears a consistent undervaluing of local methods of research to unearth a dynamic and integrative (and thus evolving) local knowing in a community of inquiry [START_REF] Van Stam | Method of Research in a We-Paradigm, lessons on Living Research in Africa[END_REF] involving human and non-human inputs. In the meantime, researchers in African universities are between a rock and a hard place [START_REF] Swartz | Between a rock and a hard place: Dilemmas regarding the purpose of public universities in South Africa[END_REF], as they are both stigmatised, or feel inferior. This situation disempowers the enactment of alternative views enlightened by African value systems as they are not (yet) accepted in the Westernoriented universities. Further, in international cooperations, often African researchers are supposed to align with neo-liberal motives of institutes and states that are, inherently, colonial from the African perspective: they shame, brainwash and meter out resources via them [START_REF] Van Stam | The Coming-of-Age of Super-Colonialism[END_REF]. Those that wish to include methods set in African philosophies are mostly rejected because of such methods being typified 'idiosyncratic' [START_REF] Mawere | Paradigm Clash, Imperial Methodological Epistemologies and Development in Africa: Observations from rural Zimbabwe and Zambia[END_REF]. Mainstream sciences generally marginalise the output of African research set in African philosophies. For instance, the African research work in TV White Spaces is overshadowed by the onslaught of information from Western institutes. Actually, in publications, reference of western authors or activities is seen as 'compulsory, while Western publications do not necessarily cite the groundbreaking research taking place in Africa by Africans [e.g. in 33].

ICT4D cooperations and ICT technologies are relatively new. However, Dourish and Mainwaring [START_REF] Dourish | Ubicomp's Colonial Impulse[END_REF] showed how the ubiquitousness of the information and communication technologies is inherently colonial. Therefore, the negation of local researchers, or keeping them as 'suppliers of raw data', remains a productive situation for foreigners in the African environment. It is a force that enables the structures, mechanisms, and justifications of power to function in the current, super-colonial fashion.

We have observed that research by Africans on the continent is stigmatised and often despised. This stigmatisation is devastating in its effects, as it isolates researchers in African universities, especially when they are not listed in (western) standardised and homogenised 'quality' criteria in global and national institutional rankings. Goffman [START_REF] Goffman | Stigma[END_REF] showed this attack on identity leads to passing and concealment. It acts as a means of formal social control. This social control is clear in work by Holm and Malete [START_REF] Holm | The Asymmetries of University Partnerships between Africa and the Developed World: Our Experience in Botswana[END_REF] exposing the asymmetries of research partnerships from their experience in Botswana. When we regard the African researcher as stigmatised, the work of Graham Scambler [START_REF] Scambler | Heaping blame on shame: 'Weaponising stigma' for neoliberal times[END_REF] becomes productive. Scrambler argues that 'stigma' is particularly weaponised in the neoliberal era. He observes (a) the distinctions between enacted and felt stigma (involving norms of shame) and enacted and felt deviance (involving norms of blame), and (b) the novel neoliberal dialectic between these two sets of norms, especially because of the dynamics of financial capitalism, which is 'lord' in research. The target is gathering of financial resources, and the vehicle is research. This focus on monetisation and extracting rent has led to a plethora of 'training' -part of colonialism as it brainwashes -where 'education' and 'schooling' to alleviate that 'shortcomings' (the stigma) is pushed for. However, we contend, there are more structural issues underlying this. It is in the assigned roles of power and structure. These power issues are many.

Possibly, what the reaction of #RHODESMUSTFALL movement might have shown is the ridiculing and encapsulation of the African territory 'being different' then what the forces of globalisation asks compliance with. Mass unemployment of graduates and non-graduates alike and the negation of African politics and needs for decolonisation are positioned as reasons of marginalisation. Through this typification and stigmatisation of the local demand for emancipation and epistemological sovereignty [START_REF] Buskens | Theorising agency in ICT4D: Epistemic sovereignty and transformation-in-Connection[END_REF], African research is being excluded and made even less relevant by the ones 'on top'. This negation keeps the 'African failing' narrative intact and perpetuates the thought that interventions from 'the outside' are justified and worth pursuing. This setting is part of the colonial ways, with shaming being a key element in perpetuating the structures of self-interest that support the unequal distributions of resources in society [START_REF] Walker | The shame of poverty[END_REF]. We must address the construction of the social structures of research 'normalcy' and how come that African researchers are considered different, or what causes (hidden) attitudes of prejudice. There is a clear need for the celebration of diversity in knowing, for the differentiation of attention, resource allocation, and focus.

Discussion

Foreign researchers are often complicit with the modernist narrative, steeped in philosophies conceptualised by Westerners in Western places [START_REF] Hlabangane | Can a Methodology Subvert the Logics of its Principal? Decolonial Meditations[END_REF]. They seem to thrive in normative epistemologies that do not align with the dynamic and integrated epistemologies prevalent in African settings. African epistemologies like, for instance, Ubuntu are widespread and well enshrined [START_REF] Mawere | Ubuntu/Unhu as Communal Love: Critical Reflections on the Sociology of Ubuntu and Communal Life in sub-Saharan Africa[END_REF]. They are part of a long history, being present well before the advent of colonial control [START_REF] Masaka | The Impact of Western Colonial Education on Zimbabwe's Traditional and Postcolonial Educational System(s)[END_REF][START_REF] Mawere | Possibilities for Cultivating African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKSs): Lessons from Selected Cases of Witchcraft in Zimbabwe[END_REF][START_REF] Mawere | African Indigenous Knowledge Systems' (IKSs) Potentialities for Establishing a Moral, Virtuous Society: Lessons from Selected IKSs in Mozambique and Zimbabwe[END_REF]. African means of knowing have led to embodied knowledge, often in response to various forms of oppression [START_REF] De Sousa Santos | Epistemologies of the South[END_REF][START_REF] Mawere | Oratio: A Framing of Knowledge in the Context of Technology and Academia[END_REF]. The undeserved privileges of non-African researchers indirectly serve to delegitimise African ways of knowing. Thus, to question the primacy of foreign researchers to perform research in Africa for Africa (as shown in the example in HIV/AIDS research) is a question on cognitive justice that is inseparable from the struggle for social justice [START_REF] De Sousa Santos | Epistemologies of the South[END_REF].

Examples of issues that are seemly overlooked in ICT4D research are, for instance, understanding indigenous social structures, their relation to land, the meaning of technological artefacts, and the use of taboos. These aspects of life in Africa constitute a consciousness that opposes colonial systems and, subsequently, interventions that result out of foreign research. The overshadowing of the local ways of knowing is an existential struggle. The coloniality that influences the choices in research in and on Africa denies African researchers their voice, most especially their ability to use African and local epistemic frames, with severe consequences.

A transformation of research practices in Africa would involve the disrupting of institutional cultures that guide research, publications, and funding. An example is the resource contained in the papers presented at this conference. The texts are claimed exclusively, solely, and permanently by an organisation (IFIP) and a publisher (Springer) for the financial benefit of people outside of Africa. Neither of these organisations has a workforce in Africa. Nevertheless, they gatekeep the texts and their dissemination by demanding compliance of all authors while harvesting its value by the selling of the knowledge emerging from a vital gathering of researchers and specialists. This situation represents a poignant example as to how current research and dissemination structures are set in neoliberal structures that benefit a Eurocentric elite.

When we question the effect and credibility of research done by foreigners for Africa, we examine the systems of access and management to research projects. We pose that decolonisation means reversing the systems of Eurocentric research control. Such would address and attenuate the hegemony of Eurocentric normative epistemologies and processes of research management, the use of individualistic anthropocentric methodologies, the authority of Eurocentric classifications, reviewing means of command and control and dissemination, the dominant system of capitalistic accountancy and research assessment systems. Decolonisation implies breaking the barriers between the researchers and the researched, in the strengthening of knowing in community [START_REF] Van Stam | Decolonising Science: Switching the Paradigm to 'Community[END_REF][START_REF] Van Stam | Method of Research in a We-Paradigm, lessons on Living Research in Africa[END_REF]. Reform would involve assuring pluriversalism, reorienting ways of knowing and research transcending disciplinary divisions and orientalistic, imperialistic and colonial segregations. The master narrative that research is ahistorical and apolitical, and research practices and the dissemination of its outcomes are without racism or stereotyping acts as a muffler on discussions on these issues. Being neutral means that dominant practices will continue, as the status quo of mostly foreign researchers researching for Africa is well enshrined. The continued dismantling of African agency, for instance by the established practice of inviting foreigners to research in African on Africa demands needs an academic push back. However, insisting on the primacy of African researchers for research in Africa will not go well with established partners but requires authoritative advocacy and well thought through policies.

Conclusions

Questioning the agency and effects of foreign researchers in Africa, in this paper is positioned as a profound shift of discourse towards decoloniality. The reality at hand is that the primacy of non-African researchers researching in, on and for Africa denies serious attention on the African experience and theories. They mask the complex entanglements between knowledge formations and ways of knowing. Although there is a clear need for transformation of research practices in, on and for Africa. Such a change cannot be seen outside the realm of decolonisation. This paper exposes of the dominance of Eurocentrism in research and its underlying philosophies, epistemologies and practices. Lifting the subalternising of African researchers will unearth unique ways of knowing that have been denied relevance due to a hegemonic and epistemic arrogance of long-established parties.