"Africa's the big place that you fly over when you're on your way to London," is how Assoc Prof Shamil Jeppie began a recent seminar, hosted as part of the Doing Research in Africa - Africa-Centred Research series of the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Capacity (PERC).

In his talk, Jeppie, senior researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), looked at the ways 'the South' is sometimes conceptualised as a way of thinking, and the challenges of connecting with its intellectual resources.

He identified two key ingredients for developing sustainable research relationships in Africa - the acquisition of more languages, and persistence.