Science Talks Africa: Towards a Dialectics of an African Science Space

In the last century, there has been a broadening in the scope of science in Africa; which, in turn, has seen a widespread adoption of new technologies by most African countries and causing an explosion in the number of local and international science actors. But that development, many have argued, has yet to translate into a commensurate improvement in the overall condition of life and living on the continent. And even less so on the science ecosystem — a fact that has been most tellingly revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This opens up critical questions on the nature of science and how it is communicated, especially in the context of the cultural and ideological differences, which exist between the Global North and Africa. Science Talks Africa as a science communication platform emerged mostly out of the need to engage science from that perspective, and also to address the need for both empirical and ideological spaces in which science actors moderate the dialectics of existing and emerging science and technology in the context of Africa.