The structure of knowledge production : mapping patterns of co-authorship collaboration between African and international countries.

Abstract

This research sought to explore the patterns of co-authorship collaboration between African and international authors who have published together in journals relating to the field of social psychology. Bibliographic data was used to extract and produce social network maps of academic co-author collaborations in which one of the authors was African or affiliated to an author from an African country. These patterns of collaboration were analysed using social network analysis and it was found that, on average, African authors are poorly interconnected with other international authors in the field of social psychology and are also poorly interconnected with other African authors across the continent. It is likely that these structures of collaboration constrain the ability of African authors to produce their own relevant knowledge within the field of social psychology, in that their collaborations are limited and usually mediated by international connections. This pattern of interconnection makes it more likely that African social psychologists will operate within paradigms generated by academics in international and well-resourced countries and militates against the development of African paradigms.