Global, glocal or local?

Abstract

Abstract Local (peripheral) social sciences and humanities journals are underrepresented in major indexes due to linguistic, ideological, and disciplinary bias. To seek international visibility without sacrificing their local identity, they are adopting translation-mediated bilingual publishing to construct a new identity. Since bilingual publishing is a new trend, what identity is being constructed is rarely investigated. This article aims to explore the linguistic, content, and communicated identity of those journals. Content analysis was used to review the language policies (websites, article abstracts, and full articles), the composition of editorial teams, pools of contributors, instructions to authors, journal overviews, and website logos or journal covers of sixty-eight peripheral social sciences and humanities journals. The results indicate that the majority are attempting to construct a glocal identity, a hybrid identity to maintain their unique status as a local journal and simultaneously strive for better recognition in the international community. Another finding is that the journals are divided in terms of communicated identity, causing obstacles to the successful construction of a new identity. This study provides evidence on the construction of a glocal identity by bilingually published peripheral journals and has implications for the strategic use of linguistic and non-linguistic resources in identity construction.