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This work in progress explores how internationalisation policies and instruments affectperceptions of quality, relevance, and learning in higher education (HE) and how these perceptionstravel with internationally mobile students and academics. Inherent in the word inter-national is afocus on geography; this begs the question how geography can improve the quality of HE: how canthe integration of a ‘non-national’ dimension or the mobility between countries enhance therelevance and quality of education? We propose that drawing on spatial theories help us tease outimplicit understandings of geographies of internationalisation; i.e. what come to be seen as ‘the rightknowledge’ when teaching in English, who becomes the ‘good student’ in a classroom with studentsfrom all over the world, and how perceptions of pedagogy is negotiated by international staff. Afterdiscussing arguments for a spatial approach to HE internationalisation, we present the ongoingempirical study and its first results.

This chapter discusses and reflects on the dilemmas and paradoxes of capacity building in African higher education by drawing on the findings of the case-based chapters in the book. The collection confirms the importance of using geography of knowledge as an approach for understanding how capacity building influences and affects African academics, institutions and degree programmes. The chapters also illustrate how reflexivity and positionality can be important tools for highlighting the power relations inherent in capacity building. In this chapter we discuss the three interwoven dilemmas of firstly capacity building projects and the power of knowledge, secondly the geography of knowledge and cultural production of academics and thirdly Africanisation of curriculum and powerful knowledge. We claim an important element of future capacity building programmes should be related to how to counter neo-imperial effects of internationalisation. We finally argue that capacity building programmes can be a means to assist African universities to ‘find their own feet’ if they are based on long terms partnerships, a close understanding of historical, political and geographical context, and not least a common exploration of knowledge diversity. This exploration of knowledge diversity is important for higher education both in Africa and in the Global North.

This chapter provides a background for understanding the book. We outline some of the debates in which the individual chapters are situated and thereby show how the book contributes to and fills gaps in existing research. After providing a short history of African universities, the chapter subsequently outlines the international dimension of higher education in Africa, including an introduction to issues of capacity building. The last half of the chapter concerns knowledge production; first we point to the hegemony of Western thought in education and knowledge production as well as Africanisation as an opposing trend. Then, we discuss knowledge production within universities including how scientific knowledge is spatially situated, the role of local knowledge in academia and finally argue for seeing scientific and local knowledge as different modes of knowledge. The chapter concludes by arguing that it is incorrect to talk about African universities as a certain type of university due to the different colonial heritage. However, universities in Africa are facing a number of similar challenges related to the European heritage of the university for instance what counts as legitimate, relevant and valuable knowledge is measured by the same standard as in the Global North.

Capacity building within higher educational institutions in so-called developing countries is gaining momentum and likewise the research field ‘international education and development’. In this paper we address the question: How can we make capacity building of higher education in developing countries without imposing a neo-imperialist agenda? We provide a first attempt to answer this by discussing our experiences of being part of the Danish Building Stronger University (BSU) capacity building project. Here we realized that we had participated in a mainstreaming of academia despite our intention to do the opposite. Hence, we want to address how to make quality assurance can be made without imposing Western epistemologies. We call for an appreciation of different knowledges instead of mainstreaming in the name of internationalisation and globalisation. Capacity building of higher education in developing countries should ensure a broader perspective of educational quality in order not to lose knowledge diversity and wisdom.

The chapter begins by arguing why it is interesting to study higher education and capacity building in Africa. Without essentialising Africa, we wish to contribute to a better understanding of the multi-faceted and dynamic development of contemporary universities in Africa. Then we explain our innovative approach to higher education and capacity building, namely by studying this through ‘geographies of knowledge’. This is an interdisciplinary field that pays attention to the ways scientific knowledge is produced and consumed with a special focus on geography. By using a geographical approach for exploring the current and future development of teaching and knowledge production in Africa, we want to explore how scientific knowledge is negotiated and contested in parallel to societal changes in general and capacity building in particular, and thus how scientific knowledge becomes local. Then we position the book and its authors before the structure of the book is presented together with a short presentation of the case-based chapters, organised in three parts. These are Part I: Capacity building of African universities – asymmetrical power relations? Part II: Researching and teaching climate change in Africa – whose reality counts? And Part III: Creating and using academic knowledge in Africa – decolonising research?