Rockefeller Foundation in Southern Rhodesia: American Philanthropy and Higher Education in Sub Saharan Africa

• In Event: Cultural imperialism: philanthropy and education in sub-Saharan Africa.

Proposal

This presentation will examine the educational interactions between the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) and the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (UCRN) located in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe between 1945 and 1980. These educational interactions were facilitated by the movement of people, money, and ideologies from the United States to Southern Rhodesia and vice versa. The research set out to find what can we learn from the RF’s activities in Rhodesia, as a case study of US philanthropic organizations’ educational activities in Sub Saharan Africa as a whole? By focusing on the connections between RF’s educational programs and the rise of nationalism in Southern Rhodesia, this research adds to our understanding of how US philanthropic organizations’ educational activities shaped Sub Saharan African nationalists and, how these nationalists used these programs to further their own individual and/or political agendas.
Cold War literature on US philanthropic organizations’ activities in developing countries generally agrees that their primary focus was higher education. We are told that this proclivity was done to create and fund knowledge which presented the US capitalist system as progressive and, train African elites to see the world through US capitalist lenses. My research findings are closely related to findings from the history of African education literature. In this literature, scholars have argued that western education was directly responsible for the rise and spread of nationalism in Africa.
Yet, despite what seems to be a positive correlation between Western education and rise of nationalism in Africa, in my case study of Southern Rhodesia, this correlation is much more complicated. On one hand, Cold War politics forced US government and organizations to support anti-colonial movements. On the other hand, the close ties between Southern Rhodesia’s white minority rule—especially Ian Smith’s government—and Washington called for loyalty from both the US government and its organizations. Placed within this liminal position of being loyal to white minority rule and support anti-colonial movements, the RF could not openly present their agenda to train local African elites as future leaders. At the same time, the foundation’s liminal position incentivized African-Rhodesian students, who were the beneficiaries of RF educational programs. Those students used the RF programs to further their own individual and national political agendas. Findings from my research will be shared with participants to show that far from being a linear transfer, the connections between the RF educational programs and the rise of nationalism in Southern Rhodesia was very complex and strategic.
My examination of the interactions between the Rockefeller Foundation and University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland adds to our understanding of the history of Southern Rhodesia as a case of Sub Saharan African education and, the rise of nationalism in Sub Saharan Africa. Additionally, it can also contribute to policy analysis and public debate on the opportunities and possible consequences of philanthropical educational intervention in Sub Saharan Africa.

Author

• Fungisai Musoni, The Ohio State University