The Role of Social Science Research in the Social, Political and Economic Transformation in Kenya
Rapporteurs
John O. Shiundu
John Aluko Orodho
The workshop was attended by 30 participants drawn from OSSREA - Kenya Chapter members in public and private universities and a few invited guests. The workshop had four main activities: Opening Session, Paper Presentation and Discussion, Business Session, and Workshop Evaluation. This report is divided into four sections to reflect these four activities.
The Kenya OSSREA Liaison Officer, Dr. John Aluko Orodho, welcomed all the participants to the workshop. He started by explaining briefly the objectives of the workshop. He stressed that given the importance of the theme of the workshop, i.e., The Role of Social Science Research in the Social, Political and Economic Transformation in Kenya, a lot was expected from the participants in terms of mapping out research priorities and the needs of the country. He noted that the topics of the papers to be presented reflected the seriousness with which the Kenyan scholars sought to critically reappraise the nature of the existing social science knowledge in the country; the adequacy of conceptual and analytical tools to understand the social, political and cultural conditions in the country; and the urgent gaps which need to be filled with fresh research. The fact that the papers were drawn from the social, physical and biological sciences underscored the importance and seriousness of the workshop in its attempt to understand the social, political and economic scenario from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Finally, Dr. Orodho invited the Chairman of the session, Prof. John O. Shiundu, who is also the OSSREA Vice- President, to go ahead with the formalities of the workshop.
The chairman thanked again the participants and invited the speakers for the opening session according to the programme.
The Liaison Officer started by briefing the participants on the historical aspects of OSSREA and the OSSREA-Kenya Chapter activities since the last workshop held at Kenyatta University, on August 7-8, 1995. He informed the participants that OSSREA is a sub-regional social science organization established by researchers from the East African region in 1980. Presently, it serves the regions of Eastern and Southern Africa and draws its membership from 13 countries. In its 18 years of existence (from 1980-1998), OSSREA has been producing and disseminating relevant and valuable knowledge to a wider audience in the Eastern and Southern Africa region and beyond. The objectives of the organization, as stipulated in its constitution, are as follows:
· To encourage and promote interest in study of and research in the social sciences in the region;
· To promote collaborative research and facilitate scholarly exchange of ideas and publications between individuals and institutions engaged in study and research in the region;
· To promote training of African scholars in the social sciences;
· To cooperate with other individuals and institutions in Africa or elsewhere in the world engaged in areas of interest; and
· To establish special funds for such research grants and training fellowships as are consistent with its objectives.
The Liaison Officer also pointed out that the OSSREA - Kenya Chapter has been one of the most active in the region. The membership drive has been quite impressive, standing at 50 paid-up members as of September 1998. These members have also been very active and they have participated in the Social Science and the Gender Issues Research Competitions every year. They have won several of these grants in the two categories. The other activities of the OSSREA- Kenya Chapter have been:
· Organizing Workshops;
· Participating in OSSREA Competitions;
· Contributing to OSSREA Research Report Series and other publications;
· Participating in OSSREA Executive Committee (by some members); and
· Participating in other OSSREA workshops and congresses (by some members).
The Liaison Officer then concluded that despite the logistical problems that he was facing in managing the Kenya-Chapter, the Chapter was making more effort to promote OSSREA's activities. He urged the members to keep up the spirit in order to ensure the survival of the Chapter. He singled out good work being done by Prof. John O. Shiundu as the OSSREA Vice-President and Prof. Paul P. W. Achola as a member of the Editorial Board of the Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review.
The Chairman, Prof. John O. Shiundu, reiterated the role of OSSREA in promoting the development of research and scholarship in the region. He encouraged the members to continue participating actively in the research competitions. He advised those who have won such grants, to strive to complete their researches in time so as to enhance the good image of Kenyan scholars. At the same time, he encouraged the members to contribute articles to the various OSSREA publications. This, he explained, was an important component of OSSREA's activities, i.e., disseminating research results and providing mechanisms for communication among scholars in the region. He further revealed that these publications include: The Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review (EASSRR), Occasional Paper series, the OSSREA Newsletter and books.
Prof. Shiundu finally touched on the administrative structure of OSSREA. He explained that OSSREA is run by an Executive Committee elected by the Congress. The only full time member of the Executive Committee is the Executive Secretary who is appointed for a three-year contract. As a network of social scientists in the region, OSSREA is governed by a constitution and a congress that holds its meetings every three years to review its activities, to lay out new ones and to elect an executive committee that manages and oversees the activities of the organization until the next congress. The day-to-day activities are run by OSSREA's Secretariat from its Head Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while the Liaison Officers in the respective countries ran the National Activities of their chapters with the support of the National Committee.
The chairman thanked the participants once again and invited the guest of honour, Prof. Bethwel Alan Ogot, Director, Postgraduate Studies and Research Institute at Maseno University College, to open the workshop on behalf of the Principal, Prof. William Ochieng.
The social sciences from the early 19th century developed in a turbulent fashion. The metropolitans, particularly the Americas and the European countries, ensured that the social sciences focussed on the interest of their respective states. They focussed on the scientific aspects of social science discourse on their society.
The social sciences were then looked upon to address the specific problems of the society and later they moved into the academic institutions. In this endeavour, the social scientists sought links with policies. Their efforts were slowly geared towards being more applicable to policy and hence they created the emergence of a capitalist welfare state. The state then started funding research from the 1960s when most African countries had just gained political independence.
There was also a latent conflict between the social scientists' aims and society's aims. This conflict created the need for legitimacy. This was based on the premise that sociological location of the social scientists influences policy. This also created problems of objectivity vis-à-vis subjectivity, which then called for neutral scholars.
The status of the social scientists was then at stake. The social scientists then tended to join stronger bodies such as various state corporations to assert their presence as academic forces. This caused the danger of the social scientists' siding with other social forces while others resisted siding with either force, hence remaining neutral.
In the African context, there were such issues as whether the African states needed social scientists. The social scientists have undergone several phases of change in Africa. First, there was the laissez-faire period where there was no overt state support for social scientists; then the period between the 1960s and 1970s when the state showed some conspicuous involvement. During this period, researchers were used by the state. They were used by Research Agencies in specific research areas. Third, in the mid-1970s, there was state detachment from the social science efforts. In fact, during the mid 1970s, social science research weakened, and the social scientists seemed to have shifted their interest. Positivist social science has since declined.
The scenario of the social sciences in Kenya raises the following issues: How many Social Science Departments and Research Institutions do we have in the country? Has neo-colonialism allowed some African social scientists to assert themselves, and has the intellectual dependency been questioned? In Kenya, there has been no communicative growth of research knowledge. There has been no theoretical framework developed and there has been poor methodological vigour. Consequently, the theoretical and the methodological contributions of the social scientists have been quite few. There are no homegrown social theories (anthropology and sociology are quite western). Yet, knowledge is power. Why has this trend developed?
Friends and colleagues, I am both honoured and privileged to join you this morning for the opening of this important workshop. The fact that all of you have taken time from your busy schedules and travelled from various universities and institutions in the country to be here is a demonstration of your commitment to the improvement of social science research in the country.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers of this workshop. I am particularly delighted that the organizers selected Maseno University College as the venue for the workshop.
Mr. Chairman, I have been informed that the workshop will focus on the theme: The Role of Research in Social, Economic and Political Transformation in Kenya. This theme is crucial and should be discussed thoroughly. I have noted from the programme that the papers cover several topics and are drawn from a multi-disciplinary perspective. This is in itself an indication that the theme will be given a wider and deeper coverage.
Mr. Chairman, let me start my speech by discussing the historical development of the social sciences in Eastern Africa in general and the Kenyan Public Institutions in particular. Let me stress at this juncture that the social sciences are inextricably linked to the real circumstances from which they emerge. As a consequence, in order to appreciate the nature of the problems faced by African scientists, it is essential to always bear in mind the historical and political as well as socio-cultural context within which the social sciences have developed in the region. From a historical perspective, scholars need to focus on: the relative newness of an indigenous social science community and the dramatic changes in the environment within which social science research teaching, research and utilization take place. Thus, even before social science had time and space to establish itself in the African society, it had to respond to rapid changes in the environment - the political, social and economic changes with their varied implications.
The recentness of the indigenous science community is a reflection of the years of colonial neglect of the education of the colonized people. As the tale has been told often enough, it suffices to reiterate the point and present figures that indicate the magnitude of the internal handicap and the substantial progress made since independence; for instance, in 1960, there were only 21,000 students in Africa's tertiary educational institutions, and a few thousands in universities abroad. Since independence, African governments have made laudable efforts to redress the imbalance; i.e., by 1983, some 437,000 students were enrolled in African universities and a further 100,000 abroad. Although these figures have since improved dramatically, Africa still lags far behind other developing countries.
One of the implications of the newness of the social science institutions and communities is the continued intellectual dependence, which manifests itself in various ways. It is noted that the most conspicuous of this is the continued existence of institutional forms borrowed from the metropolitan countries in undiluted forms as a result of the economic neglect. A more significant manifestation of this dependence appears in the direction followed by research techniques and the teaching of the social sciences in Africa. We scholars must persistently strive for decolonisation
The interface between research and policy is extremely unsatisfactory to both researchers and policy makers. Part of the problem was the unrealistic expectation about what the social sciences could achieve in the process of development. Policy-makers have always had a basically instrumentalist and technocratic view of science, research and training. This view must change, and the Kenyan social scientists need to make concerted efforts with policy-makers to map out the social, political, economic and developmental agendas of the country.
There is a need for strengthening the relationship between basic and applied research. The social scientists of the new century must come forward in making the research results accessible and useful to the policy-makers and the end-users. Social science researchers should not be accused of irrelevancy, ivory tower isolationism and negativism.
The demand for social science research is very high in the Eastern African region. A lot remains to be known about how the economies of these countries work, about the factors affecting the performance of governments, and about how to adopt methods and solutions from other societies to our own country-specific environment. One of the effects of the recentness of our arrival on the scientific scene is that we have as yet to establish ourselves in the community with stable scientific rules of the game and procedures of self-evaluation. The challenge for this workshop remains: Should our community remain fragile and fall prey to our whole ways of pressure? The objective of this workshop should, therefore, be to extend horizons of enlightenment and thereby reduce the territories of ignorance. Indeed, this workshop should come up with workable data and information needed to expand the body of knowledge and techniques available in solving the social, political and economic problem facing Kenya.
In conclusion, Kenyatta University in collaboration with Maseno University College, recognizes the importance of the workshop. It is my hope that at the end of the two-day brainstorming session, more light will have been shed on this theme and that you will have come up with realistic and effective policy recommendations.
Mr. Chairman and Participants, while thanking you for your attention and wishing you fruitful deliberations, I have the great honour now to declare this workshop officially open.
Thank you.
