Social justice and the international flow of knowledge with specific reference to African scholars

Abstract

PurposeIn the globalized world the movement of scholars facilitates the global flow of knowledge and supports the pillars of the knowledge economy as defined by the World Bank. But not all academics are born equal: African scholars face significant barriers with regard to freedom of movement. The purpose of this paper is to describe the processes that African scholars typically have to undertake to participate in the global academic community, to identify some of the potential difficulties in these processes and to articulate the moral concerns that arise from these processes.Design/methodology/approachBoth secondary data analysis to illustrate and support the arguments as well as anecdotal evidence to provide specific examples of African scholars' experiences are used.FindingsJustice is viewed as one of the most important virtues regulating the movement of people in the global knowledge society. It is used as a normative instrument to argue that the international community has a moral and legal responsibility to create a more flexible and fair structure to enable knowledge to flow more freely between African scholars and their counterparts in Europe and North America.Practical implicationsA Global Knowledge Treaty is proposed that will allow African scholars to travel more freely in pursuit of new knowledge and opportunities and platforms to share their knowledge is proposed as a potential solution that seeks to strike a fair balance between rights of nation‐states and the rights of individuals to freedom of movement.Originality/valueThe value of the paper lies in that it highlights a topic of contemporary importance in the knowledge economy that has far‐reaching implications for African scholarship in particular and education and development in African countries in general.