Round Table “South-South Learning: Trends and Challenges in the Exploration of an Emerging Research Agenda”

In October 2015 Elsje Fourie and Wiebe Nauta organized a Round Table with nine participants from universities and policy institutes in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and South Korea, coinciding with the visit of Dr. Emma Mawdsley from Cambridge University, whose book From Recipients to Donors (2012) is considered groundbreaking in the analysis of South-South Development Cooperation (SSDC).

In recent years, the notion that scholars, policymakers and practitioners in the Global South are able to more easily and fruitfully share development knowledge and assistance among themselves than was the case with the more traditional “North-South” model has become popular but also contentious. This workshop at FASoS therefore aimed to initiate an information-sharing platform for academics and policy-oriented researchers working in the field of “South-South learning”, as well as the wider topic of SSDC. In addition, it sought to explore possibilities for future collaboration and tangible outputs on this topic.

During an afternoon and evening of stimulating exchanges on the challenges and opportunities around South-South learning, the participants planned to collaborate on a follow-up conference and publication. One year later, we have sharpened our focus to the politics of knowledge production on SSDC—how should those who study SSDC position themselves as researchers, and how can we approach SSDC with the same critical orientation with which we have rightly approached older forms of North-South DC? In the follow-up, the FASoS researchers have collaborated intensively with Dr. Emma Mawdsley to solicit funding and co-organize a conference titled “Researching South-South Development Cooperation: Critical reflections on epistemological and methodological challenges” which will take place in Cambridge from 3-4 April 2017 and form the foundation for a special journal issue or edited monograph. The conference will involve participants from the original Maastricht Round Table but will also include a wider range of participants from countries around the world. The GTD research group at FASoS has thus been instrumental in a larger and much-needed network of scholars and research institutions interested in interrogating their own roles in the production of knowledge about SSDC.

This Round Table is part of the Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development programme.