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.
We have found that the local-global dichotomy is less about geography than about value systems, legitimacy, and self-recognition. One may be locally situated while reproducing global logics of validation and appropriation. Although we recognize that the local-global binary may no longer hold as a stable ethnographic category in a deeply entangled world, thinking with it across our cases helped us surface recurring dynamics of power, recognition, and epistemic dependence. In Syokau’s example, graffiti artists produce work that may not translate easily into dominant aesthetic standards circulating in global art worlds. Yet within their immediate contexts, their interventions operate as forms of protest and social critique, speaking to local publics rather than performing for external validation. This is in stark contrast to scholarly publishing, which remains largely oriented outwards for an audience beyond Kenyan or African contexts. Across our examples, we observed how “the global” often functions as a site of legitimacy, while the “local” becomes a site of production, protest, or adaptation.
These patterns remind us of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s call for “decolonizing the mind” – the ongoing work of resisting the internalization of external standards of value and authority. Wambui recounted attending a standing-room-only celebration in the United States honoring two Kenyan exiled intellectuals. She reflected that she had never witnessed such public celebration of their intellectual and advocacy work within Kenya itself. Why, she asked, does recognition sometimes require external affirmation before being fully appreciated and acknowledged at home? Across our cases, the local-global dynamic revealed not only spatial and cultural differences but asymmetries in whose knowledge counts, where and how it is validated and how authority circulates.
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Leonida Mutuku
The artifacts and critical commentary identify local actors as critical but sidelined contributors to existing global knowledge infrastructures. They are playing roles such as trainers of models, as ‘data subjects’ and as contributors of data to train AI systems. Examples given included the Gen-Z protest archive to preserve knowledge not likely to appear in official history and localized training of AI such as custom GPTs trained on local content. We have identified that their contribution to global knowledge infrastructure may in different times be viewed as ‘tokenistic’ and extractive especially if the contribution to AI systems does not result in commensurate benefits.
Aurelia Munene
Organizations, such as Eider Africa, PhD in Africa, Lagos Studies Association are challenging the prevailing global knowledge infrastructure. These Africa-led initiatives, along with other resilient actors, are pushing back against a relentlessly evolving system that perpetuates inequalities and limits the mobilization capacities of African researchers’ collectives and movements. Despite these challenges, these local actors have demonstrated remarkable adaptability. They maintain flexible approaches to learning, constantly rethinking knowledge production, embracing diverse methodologies, and utilizing platforms like WhatsApp to connect researchers and amplify their voices. However, postgraduate systems often remain deeply embedded within these global knowledge infrastructures, particularly concerning publishing and its exploitative practices. These systems tend to validate only specific methods of knowledge production and dissemination. Consequently, local actors must continue to organize and raise critical consciousness more rapidly and boldly to counter these entrenched inequalities.
Syokau Mutonga
Local graffiti murals, such as the MaVulture campaign, among others, position local actors as those with the power or right to the city. Graffiti artists paint in a visual language or repertoire that goes against state knowledge, because they are pushing back against the state’s idea that leaders are voted into power to look out for themselves. Wider global infrastructures, especially in governments, position local actors as having as much power as the people they elect. And it has been interesting to see how, on the global stage, local actors are protesting poor governance and drawing inspiration from Gen Z protests in Kenya. At the same time, the Gen-Z protesters in Kenya are also drawing their inspiration from other similar movements happening across the world, like Palestine and the United States. From an art historical perspective, local articulations of graffiti exclude those who cannot understand the language, offering further insight that some struggles on the local scene are not for a global one. As such, the localised language makes the struggle or discussion relevant only to those it addresses.
Angela Okune
In my case, the stakeholders involved in originally setting up the DOI infrastructure (Sun Microsystems, the International DOI Foundation, R.R. Bowker, and elite U.S. universities) reflect a closed circle of influential Western institutions and members. Early discussion of DOI governance assumed that powerful corporate and academic actors would continue to define and manage the infrastructure; there appears to be no intention by the founders to have a broader global collective shape the DOI infrastructural development. In this way, the DOI was actually a parochial, local initiative in the US, however, due to the power and capital resources of these actors, they have been able to set up a global infrastructure that enrolls scholarly outputs from around the globe. These actors are supporting the recently formed Africa PID Alliance which African actors as late entrants to an already-established global infrastructure. For example, Owango states, “Africa really needs to be part of the conversation,” framing African participation as integration rather than transformation. African stakeholders are largely poised as users and implementers of external infrastructures, not as creators of new epistemic or infrastructural paradigms. In comparison to the DOI, the ARK framework and technical design enables local institutions to take an active role in managing their identifiers, reducing dependence on global infrastructures. It is built on a model of decentralization rather than the centralization of the DOI system. There are no Persistent Identifier schemes led by and originating from the African context, however I think the location of where the technology originates from matters less than the value systems embedded in it and the configurations of power it enables.
Wambui Wamunyu
In 2016, I attended an African Studies Association conference where Micere Mugo and Ngugi wa Thiong’o were celebrated guests marking the 40th year since the first performance of their play, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi. The two literary scholars, who died in 2023 and 2025 respectively, had left their home country Kenya as exilees, escaping from a political regime that did not appreciate their use of art to expose the brutalities inherited from the colonial state and retained by post-Independence leadership. The large ballroom where the event was held was standing-room only, and I was struck by the depth of recognition and respect the two scholars received, with their contributions to literary discourse and as public intellectuals widely known among those present.
I contrast that with the policy documents and funding mechanisms that shape Kenya’s formal education system. They draw heavily from foreign models and theories, even more than 60 years after the nation attained political independence. For instance, Vision 2030, a policy document launched in 2008 to offer a template for the transformation of Kenya into an industrialized nation by 2030, envisioned and entrenched in government rhetoric the notion of a ‘knowledge-based economy’ and ‘knowledge management’. The term ‘knowledge management’ alludes to the influence in Kenyan knowledge-related policy of Austrian Peter Drucker, a leading thinker of modern management principles who is also quoted in the 2024 Fourth Medium Term Plan for Vision 2030 (National Treasury and Economic Planning, 2024).
A community library opened in 2024 with great fanfare (Vidija, 2024) in Tharaka Nithi County, in Eastern Kenya was built with USAID funding. The legislation that supports libraries (Kenya Law Reports, 2012), makes only two mentions of community libraries, and that is in connection with subscription fees. USAID funding has since been drastically slashed, affecting programmes such as the community library.
Borrowing and sharing of ideas for the purpose of contributing to a knowledge ecosystem is expected. But our reliance on external sources has also created dependence and vulnerability in a nation whose citizens are among the most highly taxed globally. We also have an extensive in-country reliance on external sources for knowledge-related theories, philosophies and funding that overlooks or subordinates its own home-grown intellectuals, thinkers and supporting structures.
References
Kenya Law Reports. (2012). Kenya National Library Service Board Act. National Council for Law Reporting. https://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/KenyaNationalLibraryServiceBoardAct_Cap225.pdf
The National Treasury and Economic Planning: State Department of Economic Planning (2024). MTP IV 2023-2024: Bottom-up economic transformation agenda for inclusive growth. https://www.planning.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/State-Department-for-Economic-Planning-Online-2.pdf.
Vidija, P. (2024, October 9). With USAID’s support Gatunga Village in Tharaka Nithi opens Sh. 58 million community library. The Standard. https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/amp/central/article/2001504338/with-usaids-support-gatunga-village-in-tharaka-nithi-opens-sh58-million-community-library.