About the Journal

AJHECE focuses on community engagement and development research addressing social injustice, poverty, corruption, unemployment and epistemic injustice, among other social and economic issues. 

The main aim of AJHECE is to contribute to building a body of knowledge on Community Engagement for the African continent. The journal aims to publish and report on a wide range of aspects of Community Engagement and Community Development in Southern Africa, the region and elsewhere, with a strong focus on research and praxis. The journal will carry papers reflecting the diversity of practice in Community Engagement. The journal actively seeks out international dialogue (especially the global South) to provide perspective on and for Community Engagement in South Africa and the rest of the region. By providing a forum for researchers, scholars, practitioners and policymakers, the key objectives for this proposed journal (AJHECE) are: 

  • To contribute to the body of knowledge on CE produced in Africa; encouragement of the African voice and voices from the global South in general, which may aid in combating epistemicide and marginalising alternative knowledge paradigms at higher education institutions.
    To grow community engagement as a discipline with philosophies, theories and praxis relevant to the African context and a practice that contributes to the various dimensions (social, economic, cultural, psychological, spiritual, and political) of human and community development.
    To embed community engagement in all activities of the university, especially research, and signal the importance of scholarly work on community-university partnerships. 
  • To advance collaborative research methodologies, especially community-based participatory research (CBPR), where communities and academics are knowledge co-creators and collaborators in research practice and knowledge dissemination. This kind of research, which values the input of and produces knowledge for and with local communities, can contribute to the process of decolonisation of universities in Africa. 
  • To provide a space for professional development, discourse and debate on community engagement and sharing knowledge through the scholarship of engagement in the African context and the global South.
  • To incorporate an author and young editorial board members support programme to encourage new authors in the field to establish themselves as scholarly writers and as a new generation of editorial board members.