North-South research partnerships in higher education: perspectives from South and North

This chapter looks at the theme of internationalization in Higher Education from the perspective of North-South cross-cultural collaboration and research capacity building. It draws on our experience of a collaboration, which was directed towards strengthening teaching of research methods to postgraduate students. The project demonstrated how North-South research partnerships in Higher Education can create new possibilities for epistemology and pedagogy. In the Southern university, the dominance of an over-specified ‘scientific’ epistemology was challenged. In the Northern institution, pedagogic relations between academic staff and international research students were challenged. Dialogue over the nature of educational research and acceptable/legitimate forms of knowledge within North-South collaborations can be uncomfortable, as contestations and disagreements are surfaced. We argue for mindfulness of influence of colonial heritage and of a global contemporary context where “big science” approaches to research have a growing influence on modes of international collaboration.