The voluntary underdevelopment paradox: revisiting Freeman’s ideas on indigenous capabilities for innovation in the global south

ABSTRACT There is a growing recognition of the university as an actor with the capacity to articulate and respond to societal needs and demands expressed outside conventional market structures. Universities in the global south offer converging spaces where knowledge stemming from different groups in society is carefully weaved with that produced in the global north to produce innovations that cater to the needs of excluded populations. However, the trends that seemed to have enabled the development of indigenous capabilities in global south universities, coupled with a worrying disconnection between such capabilities and the real world of production, may be encumbering the upwelling of socially inclusive narratives and practices around innovation, limiting thus their full transformative potential. In this essay, we draw upon Freeman’s ground-breaking idea of voluntary underdevelopment and bridge it with that of (un)satisfactory innovations and social demands for innovation to explain this paradox and propose a way forward.