Castells in Africa: Universities and Development

The volume contains three seminal contribution that Manual Castells made during his time in South Africa, along with new and previously published insights on how he has shaped research and thinking on higher education and development in Africa. Muller, Cloete, and Schalkwyk have edited the previously published material, and in some cases substantially reworked it to fit the ambit of the collection. The classic essays are Universities as Dynamic Systems of Contradictory Functions; The Role of Universities in Development, the Economy and Society; and Rethinking Development in the Global Information Age. Castells himself contributes an afterword. Distributed in North America by African Books Collective. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

“The convergence between the shift to a new form of economic organisation, the acceleration of the technological revolution, and the re-legitimation of political institutions, has a site in society: higher education. This is why the university is simultaneously a decisive battlefield and our hope for a better future in the midst of the current darkness.” – Manuel Castells in the Afterword to Castells in Africa

“Castells in Africa is by far the best book-length publication yet on what went wrong with higher education after apartheid and why South Africa struggled to create from among its more promising universities leading producers of new knowledge in this part of the world system. In the work of this incomparable intellectual we find not only powerful diagnoses of what holds back our universities but also compelling solutions about what can (still) be done to harness the intellectual resources of Africa’s best institutions.” – Jonathan Jansen, President of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa

“This book is doubly important. First, it showcases the work of Manuel Castells re-emphasising its continuing endurance as a framework for thinking creatively about the evolution of higher education globally. Second, it focuses on development, a preoccupation that has rather got lost in the self-referential squabbles about tuition fees and marketisation that have obsessed higher education in the developed ‘West’ in these dog days of neoliberalism. This collection brings us back to fundamental issues of reform, social justice and global equity.” – Peter Scott, University College London Institute of Education