In this curated analysis, we aim to build a comparative, collaborative understanding of assumptions about “knowledge” in our different domain areas. These are not meant to sound like a cohesive “voice,” but rather punctuated snapshots from each of us. By anchoring our work in a shared analytic question, we create a common frame that allows differences and resonances to surface without forcing consensus. This approach reflects the value of “explanatory pluralism” embedded not only in the data publishing software we leverage (Poirier 2017), but also in our collaborative method itself.
We each answered the question first individually about our own cases and then we came together for a synchronous discussion to tease out the shared learnings and insights across domains. The summary below includes our collective summary of insights as well as our individual responses.
Knowledge is frequently treated as an object that can be owned, packaged, protected, and commercialized. Whether in AI data markets, scholarly publishing infrastructures, university innovation systems, activist art, or public education policy, knowledge is often abstracted from the labor, relationships, and lived experience that produced it and reframed as a commodity circulating through regimes of intellectual property and financial exchange. At the same time, our cases reveal competing assumptions: that knowledge belongs to communities; that benefit-sharing must precede commercialization; that ownership cannot be neatly assigned through copyright frameworks; and that knowledge may be better understood as a relationship to be nurtured rather than a product to be sold. There are also uncomfortable ambiguities. When activists become paid artists, when universities scale innovation through external funding, when reformers host events within colonial institutions, or when governments frame education as both public good and revenue stream, the boundaries between resistance and absorption blur. None of these sites are innocent. The dance between working within dominant systems and building alternatives raises difficult questions about funding, legitimacy, complicity, and the inclusion/exclusion of voices. Rather than resolve these tensions, our collective analysis invites a thought experiment: if marginalized knowledge systems were to become dominant, would they necessarily produce more equitable outcomes? Is knowledge both verb and noun, as one of the participants at our public events observed, meaning that it can be abstract content as well as relational enactment. By foregrounding these frictions, we argue that assumptions about knowledge, ownership, and commercialization need to remain open to contestation, dialogue, and revision. Knowledge is not just an asset; it is labor, memory, process, and relationship and it is through ongoing exchange with fellow travelers that its meaning and value are negotiated.
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Angela Okune
In the case of DOIs, knowledge is repeatedly framed as an object to be owned, through a market-oriented lens. For example, Owango asks, “What contribution does indigenous knowledge contribute to research, innovation, and commercialization?” rather than posing questions about community ownership or non-market values. The DOI is seen as a tool to help publishers maintain control over their intellectual property in the digital realm and assumes scholarly knowledge is a commodity that requires protection and monetization. A comparison between the ARK system and the DOI makes their contrasting design logics unmistakably clear. ARK is built on the principle that knowledge should function as a public good–freely accessible, non-proprietary, and unencumbered by financial barriers. By eliminating fees and enabling unrestricted use, ARK directly challenges the DOI system’s entanglement with commercial interests and its role in facilitating the commodification of knowledge.
Leonida Mutuku
My chapter makes the assumption that knowledge – particularly cultural and indigenous knowledge in the form of language datasets and on-going and lived experiences have clear and distinct owners. This knowledge belongs to the communities that contributed to it or about which it is. This assumption goes against the usual tropes from technology developers where data is treated as a ‘commodity’ to be extracted and used by those with the ability to… as the new ‘oil’.
The Nwulite Obodo Open Data License (NOODL) license framework posits that economic benefits of data used to train AI models should first be reaped by data collectors and contributing communities before datasets become broadly accessible. In the current commercialization architecture of AI systems, what is problematic then is the current distribution of benefits is especially where African communities are contributing data. More broadly, in the case of participation, the assumed position based on the artifacts is that meaningful participation in AI value chains must include a level of economic benefit and power-holding by local communities, not just a mere requirement to be ‘consulted’ (participation-washing!). Indigenous knowledge of these communities do have commercial value and the contribution of their data, culture and language to AI systems should therefore be compensated commensurately, even if it is contributed to the commons for the sake of representation.
Aurelia Munene
Debates about the university’s role often highlight two main perspectives which in my view shapes postgraduate education. One dominant view sees universities in the postcolonial era as instrumental service providers, acting as “repositories of expertise” to serve national development goals. This is a common perspective across Africa. The alternative, positions universities as proactive engines of development, driving knowledge production and innovation. African Minds Higher Education Dynamics Series Vol. 1. I see the role within a continuum of the two and still leave room for other emerging roles. If knowledge in/with universities leads to new products, approaches, and services within frameworks of external funding models then who owns these knowledge(s) and the intellectual property rights particularly when these innovations have to be brought to scale? Again what if we rethink knowledge beyond a product that is packaged and sold as suggested by a post shared on LinkedIn by sahibzada mayed – “What if we treat knowledge not as a property but as a relationship to be nurtured? This moves us to apply tenets of what constitutes a nurturing relationship- trust and reciprocity.”
Syokau Mutonga
The “Mavulture” campaign was a 2012–2013 Kenyan political activism initiative. Launched ahead of the March 2013 general elections, the campaign used graffiti, online media, and public protests to expose corruption and hypocrisy among Kenyan politicians, urging voters to reject leaders who had perpetuated scandals and impunity. What are the artists who were part of the MaVulture campaign up to? Do they still identify as artivists? Are they still agitating for a better Kenya through their art? Each of them, Smokillah, Uhuru Brown, Bankslave and Kerosh have secured gigs to make graffiti art commercially. We see their artwork in certain gentrified parts of Nairobi. Did the commercialisation of their art make the art less ‘resistant’? Of all the activists involved in the MaVulture campaign, only Boniface Mwangi still openly identifies as an activist. And the other artists were not necessarily happy with him when he claimed the campaign as his own. The MaVulture campaign was powerful because it had no face. The artists painted at night wearing masks. I think the power of graffiti lies in its ephemerality. Even as it begins to be appreciated as an art form that can be commercialised, because it is constantly transforming to reflect the times, it resists permanence. And this dynamism is what makes it a continuous language of resistance.
Wambui Wamunyu
Between 2023 to 2026, the Kenyan government has allocated nearly 30 percent of the national budget to formal education in each financial year. This is the largest share allocated to a particular sector (Wanjala, 2025), which should portend well for the stated dream in policy documents for every Kenyan child to have equitable access to quality and holistic public education. Yet various accounts show that it is often a relatively small group of people making decisions about what knowledge is shared, by whom and where within the formal education system, and these decisions often are to the detriment of the citizens.
Consider the following excerpts from various media accounts:
“The parents of the pioneer cohort of the competency-based education (CBE) said they do not know the fate of their children after principals began issuing stern ultimatums, demanding that the students report back from the break only after clearing pending fee arrears… Principals are demanding fees, saying schools have bills to pay to run efficiently, including payment of board of management teachers, electricity, water and security guards” (Atieno, 2026).
“The Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) has called on the government to settle a Sh3 billion debt for textbooks already supplied, warning that delayed payments could stall preparations for the rollout of Grade 10 learning materials scheduled for January.” (Mumbi, 2025).
Public schools were asking parents to pay their utility bills at a time when the cabinet secretary (CS) for education publicly admitted that the government did not have figures showing the cost of educating a child from primary school to university (Muia, 2026). It was interesting that the CS made those remarks while addressing a parliamentary session at a luxury resort. The members of parliament were on a retreat themed ‘Securing parliamentary legacy.’ The following two data points indicate part of the coverage of the retreat and one individual’s 2025 social media observation (on X.com) that the government gave the luxury hotel a significant amount of business.
“As Kenyans tighten their belts under punishing taxes, ballooning debt and a harsh cost-of-living crisis, their elected leaders retreated to Lake Naivasha for a five-day show of comfort and excess. Sirens cleared roads, five-course meals were served and luxury cars filled hotel car parks, sparking public fury. Critics say the optics exposed a parliament cocooned in privilege, spending tens of millions while citizens struggle…” (https://x.com/_James041/status/2017854023005503782)
“Who owns Lake Naivasha Resort? Every governmental round table activities are all [sic] being done at Lake Naivasha Resort. There’s someone in government doing business with the state…” (https://x.com/_James041/status/2017854023005503782)
The excerpts suggest that to a great extent, Kenyan public education is a profit-making commodity owned and traded by select gatekeepers. In its present state, there are no guarantees that every Kenyan child can equitably access the quality holistic education envisioned in sector policy documents.
References
Atieno, W. (2026, February 19). Fear of dropouts as schools demand full fees after break. Daily Nation, p. 10. https://nation.africa/kenya/news/education/fear-of-dropouts-as-schools-demand-full-school-fees-after-midterm-break-5364216
Muia, J. (2026, January 28). Education CS Ogamba tells MPs gov’t is unaware of cost of educating each student. Citizen Digital. https://www.citizen.digital/article/education-cs-ogamba-tells-mps-govt-is-unaware-of-cost-of-educating-each-student-n376503
Mumbi, L. (2025, September 22). Publishers warn of delays in Grade 10 textbooks rollout over Sh3 billion government debt. Eastleigh Voice. https://eastleighvoice.co.ke/education/214487/publishers-warn-of-delays-in-grade-10-textbooks-rollout-over-sh3-billion-government-debt#google_vignette
Wanjala, E. (2025, June 12). Education biggest winner with SH. 702.7 billion budget share. The Star. https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2025-06-12-education-wins-big-with-sh7027bn-budget-share.