APISA – CLACSO
- CODESRIA : South - South Summer Institute
Theme:
Re - Thinking Development in the South : A Tri - Continental Perspective
Dates :
15 May - 09 June, 2006.
Venue :
Daksar, Senegal.
Call for Applications
The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the
Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for
the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased
to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative
encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities
by researchers drawn from across the global South, and to call for applications
to participate in the second South-South summer institute they are organising
within the framework of the initiative. The theme of the second summer
institute is: Re-thinking Development in the South: A Tri-continental
Perspective. The institute will be held in Dakar, Senegal, from 15 May
to 09 June, 2006.
Within the ambit of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA collaboration, a series
of activities and programmes has been scheduled for implementation over
the period to the end of 2007, among them an annual summer institute.
The institutes are designed to offer research training to younger scholars
on the diverse problems and challenges facing the countries of the South.
In doing so, it is hoped also to promote a revival of comparative thinking
and cross-regional networking among a younger generation of Southern scholars.
The institutes will be rotated among the three continents where the lead
collaborating institutions are located, namely, Africa, Asia and Latin
America. This way, participants in the institutes who will also be drawn
from all three continents will be exposed to the socio-historical contexts
of other regions of the South as an input that will help to broaden their
analytical perspectives and improve the overall quality of their scientific
engagements. The inaugural institute was held in 2005 in the Latin American/Caribbean
region of the global South, with Havana, Cuba, serving as the host city.
1. Objectives:
The underlying objective of the institutes is to offer research training
opportunities to participants on various key issues relevant to the South,
and on the theoretical and methodological perspectives that might be appropriate
for gaining a full understanding of the specific situation of countries
and peoples located outside the core of the international system such
as it is presently structured. The main premise of this effort is the
glaring inadequacy of the theories and methodologies developed in the
North, and crystallised in the mainstream social sciences, to provide
the required instruments for the attainment of a sound understanding of
the problems confronting – and, in many cases, overwhelming the countries
of the South. Through the institutes, it is hoped to be able to mobilise
young scholars from across the South to reflect on the alternatives that
are available for overcoming the present situation. This way, the institutes
will contribute to the promotion of a better knowledge and understanding
of the theories and methodological approaches developed in different regions
of the South as alternatives to the dominant, Northern-biased paradigms
that have shaped the social sciences so far. It is also expected that
participants will become acquainted with the local intellectual environment
in the regions where different sessions of the institutes are hosted,
and strengthen their comparative research capacities in the process. In
sum, the institutes are structured to serve as a unique forum for enhancing
a deeper understanding among a younger generation of Southern scholars
of the history, politics, economy and culture of the countries of Africa,
Asia and Latin America, and offer an opportunity to participants to develop
long-lasting collaborative relationships with their counterparts from
other Southern countries.
2. Eligibility for Participation as Laureates:
Younger scholars resident in countries of the South and who are pursuing
active academic careers are eligible to apply for a place in the institute.
Each applicant should have a university education, preferably with a minimum
of a master’s degree in any of the social sciences and humanities. Selection
for participation will be on the basis of a competitive process. All together,
36 people will be selected for participation in the institute on the basis
of 12 each from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The full participation
costs of the selected laureates will be covered, including their travel
costs (economy return air tickets), accommodation and subsistence.
3. Faculty and Staff:
Each of the institutes organised will be led by a faculty of four experienced
Southern scholars who will be recognised as people who have made some
of the most original contribution to an understanding of the particular
theme for which they have been selected to give lectures. Just as the
young scholars who will be identified to be laureates will be drawn from
Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the composition of the faculty that will
lead the sessions of the institute will also be tri-continental, underscoring
a joint and mutual learning process that should enhance the overall goal
of building alternative southern perspectives to dominant discourses that
tend to reflect uneven international power relations, and deepening South-South
comparative insights. Each of the four members of the faculty for the
institutes will be allocated four to five days to deliver his/her lectures
and to mentor the laureates on those aspects of their academic preoccupations
that are directly connected to the expertise they bring to the programme.
4. The HE 2006 Session of the Institute:
For the 2006 session of the South-South summer institutes, it has been
decided by APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA to host it in Dakar, Senegal. CODESRIA
will assume overall responsibility within the tri-continental partnership
for the session. The institute will run from 15 May to 09 June, 2006.
Two senior African scholars, one from Latin America and another from Asia
will constitute the faculty for the institute and they will deliver a
series of lectures over a period of five days each. A team of local scholars
based in Dakar will complement the faculty with additional lectures, including
round-tables. For the 2006 session of the institute, it is a requirement
that prospective laureates should have a demonstrable working knowledge
of English and French. CODESRIA will work closely with the Senegalese
authorities to facilitate the procurement of entry visas to Senegal for
the prospective laureates whose applications are successful.
5. Application Requirements:
Every researcher wishing to be considered for selection as one of the
36 laureates to be invited to participate in the any of the institutes
organised within the framework of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA tri-continental
partnership is required to submit an application that will comprise the
following key items of documentation:
a) An outline research proposal, written in English, on the subject on
which the prospective laureate would like to work during the institute.
The topic selected must be related to the theme of the particular institute
in which the laureate is interested in participating. Such proposals should
not exceed 10 pages in length and should have a clearly defined problematic;
and
b) A covering letter, of one-page, which should indicate the motivation
of the prospective laureate for wanting to participate in the institute
and explain how they envisage that they and their institution will benefit
from the institute;
c) An updated Curriculum Vitae complete with the names of the professional
and personal references of the prospective laureate, the scientific discipline(s)
in which s/he is working, the nationality of the applicant, a list of
recent publications, and a summary of the on-going research activities
in which the applicant is involved;
d) A photocopy of the highest university degree obtained by the applicant
and of the relevant pages of his/her international passport containing
relevant identity data; and
e) A letter from the applicant’s institution (university department/faculty)
or research center supporting his/her candidature. This statement of institutional
support should be produced on the institutional letter-headed stationary
and must be duly signed and stamped.
In order to receive the certificate of participation in the institute,
each laureate will be required to draw on the lectures delivered and the
course material provided to revise the original proposal on the basis
of which they were admitted and, in so doing, produce a fully-referenced
essay of up to 20 pages for consideration for joint publication and dissemination
by APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA in a South-South Occasional Papers series.
6. Application Procedures and Deadline
As the institutes will involve the participation of laureates and faculty
from Africa, Asia and Latin America, it has been decided that applicants
resident in Africa should submit their applications to CODESRIA, those
resident in Asia to APISA and those resident in Latin America to CLACSO.
The full contact details for APISA, CLACSO AND CODESRIA are reproduced
below for the attention of all prospective applicants. The
deadline for the receipt of applications is 31 March, 2006. Applications
found to be incomplete or which arrive after the deadline will not be
taken into consideration.
An independent Selection Committee charged with screening all applications
received will meet shortly after the deadline for the receipt of applications.
Successful applicants will be notified immediately the Selection Committee
completes it work. Notification of results will be dome by e-mail, fax
and post. The results of the selection exercise will also be published
on the websites of APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA.
Latin American and Caribbean applicants should send
their applications to:
CLACSO,
(2006 South- South Summer Institute)
Callao 875, 3º (1023) Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Tel: (54 11) 4811-6588 / 4814-2301; Fax: (54 11) 4812-845
E-mail: programa_sur-sur@campus.clacso.edu.ar
Website: www.clacso.org
Asian applicants should send their applications
to:
APISA,
(2006 South-South Summer Institute)
Strategic Studies and International Relations Program
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, MALAYSIA
Tel: 603- 89213647; Fax: 603-89213332
E-Mail: secretariat@apisanet.org
Website: www.apisainfo.org
African applicants should send their applications
to:
CODESRIA,
(2006 South-South Summer Institute),
BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, SENEGAL
Tel: (221) 825 9822: Fax: (221) 824 1289
E-mail: south.institute@codesria.sn
Website: www.codesria.org
ANNEX:
Background Concept Note for the 2006 Session
of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA SOUTH-SOUTH SUMMER INSTITUTE
RE-THINKING DEVELOPMENT IN THE SOUTH: A TRICONTINENTAL
PERSPECTIVE
The global South was ushered into the modern international system with
a promise of "development". However, the experiences of the
different regions of the South have been marked by a series of inter-related
problems which have stymied, obstructed or subverted their developmental
quest. In contemporary times, the difficulties and dilemmas confronted
by the South have been brought out in sharp relief by the framework of
debt and orthodox structural adjustment that have shaped the policy processes
of most of the developing countries over the last two decades. Structural
adjustment was introduced in the early 1980s as an all-embracing framework
for reform within which the countries of the South could attempt to overcome
their problems of development. In the event, rather than help overcome
the problems, it instead became part and parcel of the dynamic of crises
and decline in much of the South, reinforcing existing difficulties and
producing new ones of its own. What this meant in effect, is that most
of the countries of the South were subjected to some two decades of continuous
decline under the ambit of an unyielding donor regime of orthodoxy. The
challenges of going beyond structural adjustment and the policy orthodoxy
that underpins it is, therefore, a matter of live concern across the South
and in other parts of the world.
Insofar as the countries of the South are concerned, the limited outcome
of more than two decades or more of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment,
coupled with apprehensions about the effects of the neo-liberal underpinnings
of the accelerated processes of globalisation, have both provided a context
for and resulted in a revival of interest around the question of development
and how to secure it on a sustained basis. If, as is now widely acknowledged,
the record of structural adjustment has been dismal on the whole, any
hope that the accelerated processes of a neo-liberalist globalisation
might offer the countries of the South a possibility for realising their
developmental goals have also been severely tempered by the experiences
of spectacular generalised instability and financial collapse that took
place in different waves in the late 1990s into the new millennium in
Latin America and East Asia in the wake of the rapid capital account liberalisation
implemented in those countries. The issues which are posed in this context
are fairly straight forward and can be summarised in one grand question:
what policy framework is required in order to return the countries of
the South to the path of development and what type of development agenda
do these countries have to generate in order to achieve growth in a context
that secures the livelihood opportunities and prospects of the citizenry?
It is this question which will serve as the umbrella framework for the
organisation of a network of researchers from the South and around which
various dimensions of the issue will be explored over a period of time.
The work that will be undertaken will comprise both theoretical reflections
and an empirically-grounded critique; it is hoped that it will also draw
inspiration from and feed into the emerging global social movement for
an alternative developmental framework.
The structural adjustment years were marked by a fixation with the macro-economic
indicators defined by the neo-liberal school as being central to the construction
of economic well being and investor confidence. These indicators, including
inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, and the balance of payments
became the primary, almost exclusive purpose of economic policy-making,
even becoming self-reinforcing ends in themselves celebrated in their
own right irrespective of the damage which thy wrought on economies, polities
and societies. Such questions as employment and employment-creation, income
and income distribution, the mobilisation of domestic savings, investments
in productive structures and activities, the expansion of national and
regional infrastructure, the promotion of regional cooperation and integration
as a strategic choice for accelerating growth and human security, the
acquisition and development of technology, the development and valorisation
of human resources, the enthronement of social equity and justice in the
policy process, and the protection and promotion of the social well-being
of the citizenry, among others, were relegated to the background and ceased
to be the primary object of the economic policy process. Furthermore,
systematic national planning for economic growth and development was discarded
in favour of a reliance on the magic of the free market which the Bretton
Woods institutions insisted was the only viable path to economic transformation
in the South. Needless to add, the state was relentlessly attacked and
spirited efforts made to de-legitimise it as an actor in the economic
development process. Perhaps even more disturbing is the systematic erosion
of policy making and policy capacities in the South and the location of
key macro-economic decision-making levers in the international financial
institutions. In this, the conditionality and cross-conditionality clauses
employed by the donors were critical. And yet, it is inconceivable that
development can ever proceed on the basis of externally-defined policy
priorities and strategies or in the absence of a state that is able to
lead the process of formulation of coherent strategies. In this regard,
the tragedy of structural adjustment lay in part in the fact that it was
designed and implemented as a one-size-fits-all model that did not take
cognisance of the differing circumstances of the different countries.
As has been argued earlier, both the lesson of experience from the adjustment
years of the 1980s and 1990s, and the difficulties posed by the on-going
processes of globalisation underscore the need for an alternative economic
policy-making framework for the South. The palliatives that were offered
such as the HIPC Initiative never provided a credible way out of crises
for the countries that were defined as eligible and for all intents and
purposes, it has become a dead letter. Similarly, the Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers (PRSPs) that have been developed in recent times are too
excessively neo-liberal and orthodox in their economic foundations as
to simply amount to the continuation of structural adjustment under a
different name. The challenge of an alternative therefore remains and
it is proposed to organise a South-South intellectual reflection around
it which will not only examine, in a comparative perspective, the impact
of orthodox adjustment, included all-round economic liberalisation but
also identify the consequences of over two decades of maladjustment for
the advancement of human security, social equity, domestic accumulation,
and cross-national cooperation. The work that is to be undertaken will
also serve crucially as a foundation on which South alternatives to neo-liberalism
that could also feed into a process of both re-thinking the foundations
of development and a reconciliation of development with a human-centred
social policy and participatory democracies will be undertaken. The reflection
that will be carried out on South alternatives will encompass national-level
strategies and agenda-setting; it will also be consciously directed to
explore the challenges, promise and problems of cooperation and integration
in the South.
Among the sub-themes which it is hoped the proposed South network will
cover in the course of the first years of its work are the following:
i) The pitfalls of structural adjustment as a framework for the South’s
economic development and the challenges of overcoming the legacies of
maladjustment;
ii) The enduring developmental needs of the South as defined by its history,
the structure of its economies, the social and infrastructural challenges
facing the continent, and the place of the continent in the world economy;
iii) The issues posed for the development of the South by the choice between
policy orthodoxy and heterodoxy and the quest for alternatives to neo-liberalism,
including the philosophical underpinnings of such alternatives;
iv) The place of the state and the type of state which the South’s economic
context calls for;
v) The question of self-determination and economic sovereignty in contemporary
times;
vi) The challenge of social justice and equity in the developmental process;
vii) Strategies for harnessing the market, the private sector, and foreign
investment to serve the developmental needs of the South;
viii) Strategies for establishing greater internal coherence and intra-
and inter-sectoral balance in Southern economies;
ix) The financing of development in the South;
x) The dynamics of regional cooperation and integration in the South;
xi) South strategies for an enhanced role in the international trading
system, the reform of the international financial institutions and the
reform of the broader international system;
xii) New (global) social movements and emerging popular developmental
alternatives; and
xiii) The global context and the challenges of sustained/sustainable development
in the South.