Researchers working under this pillar engage with South-South relations from an historical, sociological, political, cultural, geographical, curatorial and artistic perspective. We are interested in ideas, images and imaginations, and also utopias of what other world orders and political alliances seem possible in the processes of decolonization.

One point of departure is the 1955 Bandung Conference of Asian and African states and the resulting non-aligned movement, which also includes countries in Latin America or Oceania. After gaining independence from colonial rule and building up nation-states, for a brief moment an alternative world order with countries of the Global South forming a political alliance was imagined. We would like to get in dialogue with the afterlife of these imaginations and political ideas through Southern art works, urban strategies, organized networks, exhibitions and cultural productions, and discuss their political and socioeconomic implications in dialogue with partners from the respective countries and contexts for understanding contemporary South-South relations and their future perspectives.

While the growing economic power of some parts of the Global Souths and the relevance of South- South economic relations is gaining a lot of attention, we encourage transdisciplinary research on artistic, political and social collaborations among Southern countries, cities, and actors. Theoretically, we draw on a wide range of Southern and postcolonial theories. Empirically, we study among others organized networks and collaborations in the cultural field, infrastructural projects, urban and rural environments, digital cultures, art projects and exhibition spaces in the Global North and South to comprehend of the multiple South-South entanglements, alliances and cooperations. Here we draw on Dilip Menon’s notion of the Global South as a knowledge project. As Menon (2018: 37) notes, “we have to reimagine the Global South as a knowledge project which aims to bring into our intellectual discourse on the world concepts drawn from the world and not only from Euro-America.”

Researchers working under this pillar view the co-production of knowledge through a methodological prism critical of conventional research practices that exploit historically marginalised people(s) and exclude the "researched" from the research process and the knowledge it produces. The underlying goal is to include more diverse experiences, perspectives, and epistemologies in research process. Hence, we see horizontal collaboration as a step towards achieving this goal. We understand the co-production of knowledge as a process that brings together various actors (both human and more-than-human), accounts for different forms of knowledge, and works towards reducing power asymmetries and structural inequalities. In doing so, we adopt a decolonial approach to knowledge production.

Moreover, co-producing knowledge comprises the whole research process from defining the research goal, the research design, collection of data, to publishing and disseminating results. This poses significant challenges, among others, the current structures of project management (funding, mobility, etc.), but also the epistemological biases inherent in the academic system. Discussing experiences among ourselves as well as with others enables us to develop inclusive and sustainable practices for collaboration and co-producing knowledge. 

In the past years, we have organized workshops and Informal Conversations (see list of activities) and edited a boasblog on co-producing knowledge (see list of publications).