Hegemonic Knowledge and Situated Knowledge

A Conceptual and Epistemological Clarification for Researchers in Guinea

Abstract

What is power? What is knowledge? What is the link between power and knowledge? This paper interrogates the relationship between knowledge and power in the context of Guinea's epidemic crises and political events. It draws on observational data collected during the Ebola epidemic (2013-2016), the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), and the ongoing military transition in the country since September 2021. The article first looks at the conception of the relationship between power and knowledge in decolonial literature and the writings of Amadou Hampâté Bâ. The text then describes this relationship in the context of the Ebola and Covid-19 epidemics, and in the ongoing political transition. Finally, the analysis provides an epistemological reflection on knowledge-situated in Guinea to rethink the conceptual and empirical research perspective on the production and circulation of (academic) knowledge in the country's knowledge ecology.