98

The interest of social sciences towards the interactions between ICT, language and knowledge is not new. However, the intelligibility of an epistemological construction of these interactions within the framework of globalization has not been studied in depth yet. This article tries to tackle this epistemological void by examining specifically the issue of African languages in the process of structuring and spreading global knowledge as well as local knowledges. These two types of knowledge, each in its own way, try to get a new status by filtering into the different knowledge markets. With that aim, they take advantage of the renewal of Western interest towards African consumers of scientific information. Therefore, policies concerning knowledge productivity and circulation are being set up within strategies of epistemological standardization. At the same time, the “linguistic and cultural diversity” fashion, which was supposed to protect local languages and knowledges, could eventually turn them into simple ethnic items.