Open access in Angola: a survey among higher education institutions [Scholarly Article - Scientometrics, June 2022]

Title:

Open access in Angola: a survey among higher education institutions 

 

Authors:

Wileidys Artigas, Eurico Wongo Gungula & Mikael Laakso 

 

Published:

Scientometrics, 18 June 2022

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-022-04410-w

 

Abstract:

Open access (OA) to research publications is of global relevance, both in terms of provision and consumption of scholarly content. However, much of the research, practice, and models surrounding OA have been centered around the Global North. In this study we investigate how and to what degree higher education institutions (HEIs) in Angola interact with the concept of OA to journal publications through their policies and practices, a country where the end of the civil war in 2002 marked a new start for growth in teaching and research. This study is based on an online survey conducted in 2020 among research management units of Angolan HEIs. 23 valid institutional responses were received of 44 invitations sent (52% response rate). The results suggest that Angolan HEIs have moderate awareness of OA but practical incorporation into academic processes has remained slow, however, this can be seen to be connected to the overall slow progress in ramping up research intensity in the country. Seven of the responding institutions reported to be involved in publishing scholarly journals, all of them OA. Overall Angolan HEIs have few institutional repositories, and have so far placed little value on OA in the context of academic career advancement.

Expanding Available Futures: Ideological Contestation in Angola’s Emerging Higher Education Sector [Comparative Education Review, 2022]

Title: 

Expanding Available Futures: Ideological Contestation in Angola’s Emerging Higher Education Sector  

 

Author:

Jess Auerbach  

 

Published: 

Comparative Education Review, Volume 66, Number 1, February 2022 

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/717552?journalCode=cer  

 

Abstract: 

This article explores the place of ideology and what I call analytic allegiances in the nascent higher education domain in Angola. Based on ethnographic research, it considers the post-War emergence of the sector and its implications for global higher education. Focusing primarily on two institutions, one state, one private, it probes how contesting cold war ideologies continue to manifest through the pedagogic, curricula, and campus-based decisions of higher education leaders in the country. It develops Jonathan Jansen’s notion of “political symbolism” to give attention to individual faculty member’s personal scholarly trajectories that result in analytic allegiances within domains of friendship and influence. It argues that exposure to political and social systems and symbols at formative times of individual faculty’s biographies radically inform the ways in which the emergent sector is being approached and molded today. It demonstrates how the existence of pluralistic knowledge traditions maintained through analytic allegiance and political symbolism have equipped Angola well for the transformative processes required in contemporary higher education. 

 

A Marriage of Convenience on the Rocks? Revisiting the Sino–Angolan Relationship [Scholarly Article - Africa Spectrum, October 2021]

Title:

A Marriage of Convenience on the Rocks? Revisiting the Sino–Angolan Relationship 

 

Authors:

Paulo de Carvalho, Dominik Kopiński & Ian Taylor

 

Published:

Africa Spectrum, 22 October 2021

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00020397211042384

 

Abstract:

China's relationship with Angola – which is both the region's top oil exporter to China and recipient of the highest amount of Chinese loans – represents a critical case when it comes to studying Sino–African relations. The Sino–Angolan relationship, forged for purely pragmatic reasons at an opportune moment of mutual need in the early 2000s, has been labelled a ‘marriage of convenience’. A variety of factors have, however, altered the environment in which China first made inroads into Angola; most notably a decline in oil prices, and the 2017 political transition. These have provided fresh impetus to the Angolan political economy and relations with China. Based on interviews we show that although oil remains a central ingredient, China's role has substantially evolved. The marriage of convenience is experiencing a period of rocky introspection, one in which the notion of China having sway in Angola can finally be laid to rest.