LIAS Kolloquium: ‘Forward Ever, Backward Never‘: Ghana’s Triangular Scientific-Technical And Material Entanglements In The Cold War

Date:Wednesday, 28 Oct 2026, 12:15-1:45 p.m.
Location:Campus | Central Building C40.530

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when African countries were gradually gaining independence and (small) Eastern European countries were seeking greater autonomy from the Soviet Union, emancipation from any form of imperial exploitation, together with scientific modernity, became an imperative for both regions. In this context, Ghana, like many other African states, viewed science and education as the ultimate drivers of development, nation-building projects, and international recognition.

This talk first uncovers the often-overlooked sparks of knowledge creation that crossed political lines, showing how deeply so-called socialist expertise was rooted in the West—more than either Ghanaian or Eastern European actors cared to admit—and how these exchanges left their mark on Western thought as well. In the second part, it turns to the material dimension of this knowledge flow, since every collaborative project and scientific partnership relied on specific tools and practical know-how. These material elements shaped the very character of cooperation, weaving a dense network of material references and personal relations used to facilitate globalised connections and formulate delocalised power claims that were not always in line with the envisioned ‘socialist modernity’ or scientific independence. Discussing internal dynamics and practices of people, knowledge and objects on the move within the West-East-South framework of the Cold War allows us to move beyond labels such as “Western,” “Eastern European,” or “African post- colonial” knowledge, revealing on the one hand the complex, networked nature of knowledge and object transfer across political boundaries, and on the other hand, the relevance of objects’ movement for the creation of liabilities and global relationality.