Tricontinental Tea Seminars: Positioning Cambridge in Geographies of Knowledge Production

As part of the Tricontinental Teas Series, the Consortium for the Global South is organizing a workshop on “Positioning Cambridge in Geographies of Knowledge Production.” The plan is to have a number of short presentations on the question of knowledge production at Cambridge and what kind of work we are doing, can do, and should do, followed by a general discussion.

The idea for this was sparked by the debate at the last Tricontinental Tea on the Politics of Science and Technology in the Global South. There, people raised questions over the use of the term “Global South.” It was asked whether this term should or can be used and, if not, then how to characterize the kind of knowledge production that we want to see at Cambridge – decolonial, decolonized, postcolonial, global, international…? What kinds of institutional structures do we need to do this kind of work? How does knowledge production at Cambridge relate to knowledge production globally today? And how do these questions fit in with the ongoing movement to decolonize the curriculum across the university?

We invite faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students to make short, 3-5 minute presentations on these questions and on their own experiences here at Cambridge. Anyone who is interested in presenting should email Adam Branch at arb209@cam.ac.uk; our plan is to have 10-15 presentations from a cross-section of faculties and departments, followed by a general discussion.

 

The Consortium for the Global South is led by the Centre of African Studies, the Centre of Development Studies, the Centre of Latin American Studies, and the Centre of South Asian Studies. It exists to promote the interdisciplinary study of the Global South within the University of Cambridge and beyond.