Abstract
Drawing on the intersection between philosophy and science, this chapter demonstrates the diversity of influences on the development of public communication of science studies in South Africa. In broader terms, the problematic notions of African rationality and (western) ideas of science literacy that are currently considered to be the result of the colonial subjugation of Africa are contextualized against that colonial background. The historical process of colonial-style political subjugation of indigenous science in South Africa under the National Party’s apartheid regime is briefly discussed as the main reason for the lack of development of representative science communication. Both the philosophical argument for a re-evaluation of the notion of rationality and the sociopolitical efforts to manipulate the knowledge of a complex society into a western mold serve to answer the initial question: whose science and what knowledge are communicated to the public(s)? The chapter is in five sections. Section 1 contextualizes the lack of development of science communication in the South African past against the progressive notion of modernity that excluded the so-called ‘primitive’ African knowledge systems. Section 2 looks at the colonial efforts of the British, who established racial segregation between white and black populations, with far-reaching impacts on the development of scientific research in South Africa. Section 3 shows how segregation was implemented by the Afrikaners during the apartheid regime, thereby marginalizing the knowledge systems of the African population. Section 4 examines post-apartheid reconstruction, and Section 5 details current efforts to popularize and communicate science.
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Notes
- 1.
Lévi-Strauss (1966) defines a bricoleur as someone who works with his hands using different means, like those of an artisan. Mythical thought is therefore a kind of intellectual bricolage used by ‘raw’ or ‘naive’ art. The (western) engineer will always try to make his way out of and beyond the constraints imposed by a particular state of civilization, while the (non-western) bricoleur, by inclination or necessity, always remains within his own domain.
- 2.
The Frankfurt School was opened in 1924 by the first Director, Carl Grünberg (1861–1940) to oppose the prevailing socio-economic order in Germany through the application of Marxist theory (Slater 1977).
- 3.
The notion of ‘scientific rationalism’ was introduced by the western ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, the concept of universalism was established during the western ‘age of enlightenment’. From this perspective, western scientific rationality (combined with philosophy in the form of epistemology) was to defend the universal status of western science as the most advanced form of knowledge and rationality. This claim to universality assigned philosophy the role of demonstrating that (western) universal a priori conditions are necessary for the possibility of science. Modern western philosophy-as-epistemology thus functions as a foundational discipline aimed at demonstrating that scientific knowledge can be accounted for in humanistic terms, with man defined as a ‘rational being’.
- 4.
Androcentric: having or regarding man or the male sex as central or primary. Collins English Dictionary. London: Harper Collins Publishers.
- 5.
Underpinning the idea that all men are the same, the awareness grew that cultures differ and exist in different geographical worlds requiring different social strategies for survival. For western science, in the quest to study man, ‘race’ soon became the marker for different social practices that constitute different cultures. Race therefore became a science ‘subject’, and racial differences became a cultural ‘marker’. The paradoxical result of celebrating differences, respect for pluralism and acknowledgement of identity politics—which became the feature of a liberal—modern democratic outlook—made science a political issue because the science of human differences could only be read in a racial fashion (Malik 2008). This can be referred to as the ‘guilt of science’.
- 6.
A further indication of advances in the definition of IKSs was in a document published by the South African Department of Art, Culture, Science and Technology after a visit by a group of South African delegates to India (March 2001). The following definition was provided:
‘Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is local knowledge generated by people living within a particular community—hence it is unique to a given society or culture. Indigenous knowledge is tacit knowledge and therefore, not easily codifiable. It is dynamic and based on innovation, adaptation, and experimentation, thus codifying IK may lead to the loss of some of its properties. Indigenous knowledge can contribute to a sustainable development strategy that accounts for the potential of the local environment and the experience and wisdom of the indigenous population. Furthermore, IK covers critical issues of primary production, human and animal life, natural resources management, etc.’ (Retrieved 24 August 2002 from http://www.dacst.gov.za).
- 7.
A number of anthropological terms that were developed by colonial contact with the ‘other’ still exist today. African traditional cultures are still being humiliated by the categorical classification of ‘being primitive’. Christopher Steiner (1994) refers to the rebellion against the so-called ‘primitive isolates’ followed by earlier anthropologists whose studies followed a ‘bounded system’ whereby, in a single society, one isolated community within one remote village was studied. Women were mostly not included in the studies and in a certain sense became doubly marginalized. Today, this ‘system of investigation’ has been revised to contain ‘processes of investigation’ consisting of the history as well as social changes in the given community. This includes the replacement of old key words such as ‘homeostasis, cohesion and balance’ with new concepts such as ‘pluralism, heterogeneity, crisis, conflict and transformation’ (Steiner 1994:1). The African community, therefore, is progressively considered as being part of a global matrix with ‘trans-national contacts and macro-scale linkages’ (Steiner 1994:1).
- 8.
The National Party took over the Union government of General Jan Smuts in 1948.
- 9.
To prevent complete political exclusion, the more educated section of the Afrikaners, with their burgeoning sense of nationhood, formed the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (‘Association of Real Afrikaners’) in 1875. In a similar vein, black South Africans formed the Native Educational Association in 1879.
- 10.
South African military personnel took part voluntarily in both World Wars.
- 11.
Towards the end of apartheid, South Africa voluntarily abandoned its nuclear armament program, and in 1993 dismantled its six nuclear bombs (Venter 2009).
- 12.
The ANC was founded in 1912. It survived decades of National Party banning orders and the incarceration of its leadership to become the ruling party in South Africa, which it has been since 1994.
- 13.
These ‘worlds’ were part of what was identified during the Cold War as an ideology-based, tripartite structure of a first world (western, industrialized, capitalist nations), a second world (centralized, command economies in communist countries) and a third world (new nations that were previously colonized by the first world). Clear preference was given to the capitalist structure of the developing world, whereby ‘the ideological underpinnings of this asymmetric structure politicized the three groups, tainting the transfer of aid and technical assistance with propagandistic overtones’ (Margolin 2007:111).
- 14.
According to the HSRC (Reddy et al. 2009) report, a few surveys in South Africa were conducted in the past by the Foundation for Education, Science and Technology (FEST). FEST later became the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA). These surveys included:
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1991: 1,300 respondents (face-to-face in white suburbs); Understanding and appreciation of science amongst the public in SA (Pouris 1991)
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1993: 400 white and 400 black respondents (face-to-face among teenagers); Understanding and appreciation of science amongst South African teenagers. (Pouris 1993)
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1995: Omnibus survey (HSRC)
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2003: 7,000 respondents (face-to-face in white suburbs); Biotechnology (HSRC)
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2007: 3,164 respondents; Climate change (HSRC) (Reddy et al. 2009).
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du Plessis, H. (2012). Whose Science? What Knowledge? Science, Rationality and Literacy in Africa. In: Schiele, B., Claessens, M., Shi, S. (eds) Science Communication in the World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4279-6_10
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