Project time line: 2015 – 2016 (completed)

This research project examined the roles of knowledge (including scientific, traditional and indigenous systems), governance and policy making in the realisation of inclusive regional development. The overall aim was to contribute towards the effective harnessing of science, technology and innovation (STI) for sustainable development via the linking of the universal aspirations of STI to the diverse realities that are embedded in different regional contexts.

Key outputs

  • An encyclopaedia project, commissioned by Indiana University Press and published in 2016, examined the Yoruba, a major ethnic group found in Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone in West Africa, and in various parts of the Americas, notably Colombia, Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as other countries. The project examined their history, language, culture, modes and levels of technological development, indigenous knowledge systems and precolonial social and political organisations. The significance of this project is that it provides a useful blueprint for undertaking a similar project in southern Africa by employing roughly the same methodological parameters.
  • Osha, S. 2017. Archaeologies of African Thought in a Global Age. In: Afolayan A., Falola T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59291-0_3]
  • Osha, S. 2017. Transcontinentality versus Afrocentricity. Africa Review of Books, 13(2)4 – 6.

Research team

Science and technology and innovation studies

Research area