IDS Senior Research Fellow, Dr Mary Kinyanjui, presented a seminar entitled, “Towards an African Economic Geography:   Challenges and Lessons Learned”, at the University of Nairobi Towers on November 21, 2019.

The seminar focused on her research and teaching experiences at Kenyatta University and the University of Nairobi in her 26-year old academic journey. The scholar also unveiled her vision for African economic geography, prompted by her experience in a developing country and the contradictions with African epistemology in textbooks, media and unfair terms of trade and global inequalities.

“I could resonate with much of what I was taught in geography. As I advanced in the study of Geography, I settled for economic geography. Economic geography studies the functions and the relationship between economic activities and actors and gives them a spatial dimension,” said Dr Kinyanjui. 

She said that in her teaching and research experiences, her first challenge was the positioning of Africa in the global economy.

“African economic geography is painted negatively in a number of books. There is much talk on poverty, disease, corruption, underdevelopment and conflict. There is little talk on the resources that Africa exports to the global market and how much Africa earns from the global trade in commodities or how much Africa consumes from international market,” said Dr Kinyanjui.  

She said although  globalization  supposedly  integrated  the  world  economy,  the  actual  presence  of  African  producers  in  the  world  market  is  minimal, citing cases of western food chains that don’t stock African products. “This is outrageous! We need a geography that explains the relationship between African producers and the international markets,” she lamented. 

Doctor Kinyanjui also cited “academism” discrimination on the basis of academic knowledge.  She said experts, theorists, and analysts discriminate some scholars. She cited a case where an organization she had approached for collaboration told her that it only works with Ivy League universities in Europe and North America.  She also narrated frustrations in journal article publication.

Another problem encountered is language.  “What  language  should  an  African  economic  geography  be  communicated  in? She posed. Dr Kinyanjui said   inconsistencies rise when trying to convert the thought process from her Gikuyu vernacular into English. 

Dr Kinyanjui further posed: “How  does one  translate  the terms  ‘very agreeable’ ‘agreeable,’  ‘not  agreeable,’  and ‘not  very  agreeable’  into  Gikuyu  while  interviewing? When Questionnaires are written in English, researchers translate  the  questions  into  any  other  language, a respondent  answers  in a vernacular  language and the  researcher translates the answer into English; whose response does the answer become?” 

She said other challenges include getting information on personal data, especially level of education, marital status, and level of income.

African Economic Geography Methodology

 Based on these and many other challenges, she engaged in alternative sources of information gathering.  Her  first  alternative  source  was  in  folk  and  pop  cultural  songs  to  harness  the  power  which  she  had  seen  in  changing  attitude.

“During  political  campaigns,  songs  are  a  media  for  changing  attitude  and  convincing  people  to  vote  for  them. Songs  constitute  the first  media  of  coded  pedagogy  that  individuals  experience  in  their  lifetime,” she said. 

The researcher also said that she had decided to come up with a methodology that will enhance data collection especially in understanding logic, norms and values of peasant, artisan and traders mode of production and exchange. This method is based on a local method of gathering information-ndereti or conversation. This method aims at making interviewing session mimic a conversation that will lead to building a story line.

“My proposed African economic geography includes the features, function and interactions of economic informality. Since  then,  I  have  been  involved  in  trying  to  bring  African  reality  into  research  on  small  enterprise,  gender  and  informal  sector so as to come up with an African economic geography,” said Dr Kinyanjui.