Inter-African Social-Scientific Cooperation in the Era of Decolonization: A Case of Science Diplomacy

Studies of trans-imperial cooperation in the scientific field have privileged the
first decades of the 20thcentury when the movement was clearly pushed by private and non-governmental actors. There is also a rich literature on the history of the post-war international organizations, the United Nations (UN) and its specialized agencies, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO), among other. Still, the coordination of science with foreign policy in the era of decolonization is still largely unexplored. With respect to Africa South of the Sahara, the post Second World War opened a new cycle in the technical and scientific collaboration driven directly by the European colonial empires. This change in the nature, scope and scale of inter-African technical and scientific cooperation has to be understood as part of the post-war state policies for reinvigorating and re-legitimating colonialism trough developmental programs. It also must to be understood within the internationalization of development framework. This article intends to address the history of the Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa South of the Sahara (CCTA) and its counselling body – the Scientific Council for Africa South of the Sahara (CSA) – from a three-fold perspective: the history of social sciences, the history of diplomacy and the history of late colonialism.
Drawing on primary printed sources from the CCTA/CSA and the UNESCO and
on archives from the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Portuguese
Overseas Research Board, it is our purpose to re-evaluate how the common aim
of reinvigorating and re-legitimating empire in the era of decolonization forged a relation between (Africanist) social scientists and foreign policy officials and diplomats, and to provide new insights into ways social science influenced and was influenced by foreign policy in this specific context.