South-North perspectives: contesting cultural and media studies.

Abstract

This intervention examines conceptual trajectories arising out of a 22 year North-South research collaboration. It traces the genesis of that trajectory of (Southern) African cultural and media studies that emerged from a context of struggle and liberation via an interdisciplinary network involving departments in universities in Zimbabwe, South Africa (and Kenya) linked to University of Oslo, 1980-2012. The study concludes by elaborating a new imaginary within cultural and media studies (CMS) that incorporates: i) social justice; ii) social action and popular participation; and iii) a reassessment of some assumptions of the European Enlightenment in multicultural African societies.