Department of Child and Youth Studies

Southern Theory, Feminism andKnowledge-Production in SouthAfrica 

Robert Morrell, University of Cape Town

08-16 20 00   info@buv.su.se   www.buv.su.se

15 september, at 15-17Frescati hagväg 24Room 204   Southern Theory is a concept that recognises that there aresignificant geopolitical inequalities in the way thatknowledge is produced. By volume and authority, the Northdominates global knowledge production. Southern Theorysuggests, however, that knowledge can be and is produced inthe Global South in ways that do not simply reproduce butactually challenge and reshape global knowledge-makingpractices. In this presentation I draw on interviews withSouth African scholars whose research was shaped by theirrelationship to activism and their engagement with

marginality stemming from histories of colonialism andimperialism. I pay particular attention to how their ownyouth experiences of schooling and their professional workas lecturers influenced their collective approach toknowledge-production and thereby, to Southern theory. Robert Morell, University of Cape Town, is an internationallyrenowned scholar writing extensively on gender,parenthood, violence and schooling. He has publishednumerous of books, including From Boys to Gentlemen(2001), African Masculinities (2005, ed. w. Ouzgane),Towards Gender Equality? South African Schools During theHIV/AIDS Epidemic (2009, w. Epstein et al), and mostrecently Books and Babies: Pregnancy and Young Parents inSchools (2012, ed. w. Bana & Shefer). He is currently workingwith Raewyn Connell, Fran Collyer and Joai Maia on aSouthern Theory project, Global Arenas of Knowledge.