Knowledge and Global Power (Making New Sciences in the South)

Knowledge and Global Power is a ground-breaking international study which examines how knowledge is produced, distributed and validated globally. The former imperial nations – the rich countries of Europe and North America – still have a hegemonic position in the global knowledge economy. Fran Collyer, Raewyn Connell, João Maia and Robert Morrell, using interviews, databases and fieldwork, show how intellectual workers respond in three Southern tier countries, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. The study focusses on new, socially and politically important research fields: HIV/AIDS, climate change and gender studies. The research demonstrates emphatically that ‘place matters’, that research and scholarship are shaped by global relationships. But it also shows that knowledge workers in the global South have room to move: they can set distinctive agendas and form local knowledge.