Mokoko Sebola on 'Scientific Knowledge in Africa' : An Afrocentric Critique - Research

Abstract

This paper extends a preliminary anti-thesis to Mokoko Piet Sebola's thesis titled 'Peer review, scholarship and editors of scientific publications: The death of scientific knowledge in Africa'. Based on his piece, it is clear that the subject of the politics of scholarship is complex and not uniformly understood. In this paper, which is largely based on the triangulation of document review and interdisciplinary critical discourse analysis, I aim to critique Sebola's piece from an alternative Afrocentric perspective; a voice that has been marginalised in this academic discourse and beyond. In particular, I consistently and systematically refute his outlandish claim that scholarly editors and their peer review processes and mechanisms are responsible for the death of scientific knowledge in Africa. The importance of this interdisciplinary debate and the need for it to be expanded and/or sustained cannot be over-emphasised.