Global Knowledge Production Research Articles

Foreign Fictions: ‘Research’ about Ethiopian Legal Reform in a Top-Tier Academic Journal

Top tier academic journals claim to publish the most rigorous, peer reviewed research. This evidence based found therein is utilized to support decision making for sustainable development. In parallel, many journals that are published in the Global South are accused of being lower quality or disregarded as ‘predatory’. This article explores an example of a ‘foreign fiction’ written about Ethiopia and published in a top tier academic journal. The narratives and evidence from that top tier journal are contrasted with research published in Ethiopian journals. This case study shows that Ethiopian scholars have produced important research and contributed evidence, but have largely been ignored, or silenced, perpetuating foreign fictions. This is important because policy and law seeking to enable development are informed and influenced by the research produced in top tier journals. Based upon this, this article critiques assumptions about “top tier” journals as well as those about Ethiopian journals, and further about the continued colonial power imbalances that exist within knowledge production systems. This has implications for universities and scholars, which continue to privilege a particular set of journals that are largely based in the Global North and wherein contributing authors are also largely based in the Global North. The reproduction of colonial relationships within global knowledge production systems calls for much broader critical reflection about whose voices are privileged as authentic conveyors of knowledge and how these privileges are institutionalized.
 Keywords: Ethiopia; Foreign Fictions; Knowledge Production; Power; Narrative; Sustainable Development; SDGs

Measuring publication diversity among the most productive scholars: how research trajectories differ in communication, psychology, and political science

Examining research patterns across scientific fields constitutes a growing research enterprise to understand how global knowledge production unfolds. However, scattered empirical evidence has casted light on how the publication diversity of the most productive scholars differ across disciplines, considering their gender and geographical representation. This study focuses on the most prolific scholars across three fields (Communication, Political Science, and Psychology), and examine all journals where they have published. Results revealed the most common journals in which prolific scholars have appeared and showed that Communication scholars are more prone to publish in Political Science and Psychology journals than vice-versa, while psychologists’ largely neglect them both. Our findings also demonstrate that males and US scholars are over-represented across fields, and that neither the field, gender, geographic location, or the interaction between gender and geographic location has a significant influence over publication diversity. The study suggests that prolific scholars are not only productive, but also highly diverse in the selection of the journals they publish, which directly speaks to both the heterogeneity of their research contributions and target readers.

Peripheral multilingual scholars confronting epistemic exclusion in global academic knowledge production: a positive case study

Abstract The decolonization of knowledge is increasingly high on the agenda of applied and sociolinguistics. This article contributes to this agenda by examining how peripheral multilingual scholars confront their linguistic and epistemic exclusion from global knowledge production. Based on the product of such a challenge – a Chinese-centric special issue of Multilingua, a global academic Q1 journal, devoted to crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic and committed to furthering intercultural dialogue in research – we explore the decades-long knowledge production process behind that product and so provide a look into the “black box” of academic networking and publishing. Advocating for collaborative autoethnography as an inherently inclusive method, we focus on enabling academic and personal networks, textual scaffolding, and linguistic and epistemic brokerage. The article closes with three aspects of linguistic and epistemic citizenship that are central to inclusion, namely recognition of the value of peripheral knowledges, recognition of a collaborative ethics of care, and recognition of shared responsibility.

Epistemological plurality in intercultural communication knowledge

ABSTRACT Intercultural communication is one of the primary fields that can deconstruct and unsettle historical and contemporary power structures. However, the demands for decolonizing the field warrant thoughtful and self-critical appraisal of how interculturality theory may fail to fulfill its inherent premises, e.g. equality, the problematization of international relations, reconciliation among cultures and ensuring the smooth functioning of intercultural communication. What is more disturbing is that intercultural communication may often focus on modest reforms calling for the inclusion of marginalized knowledges, rather than on fundamental institutional changes that can eradicate the forces that produce marginalization. To showcase the knowledge hierarchies characterizing the field, this paper examines the editorial boards and publication practices of five leading journals in intercultural communication. This paper discusses meta-intercultural ontologies and South-South inter-epistemic dialogue as nuanced decolonial counter-visions for disrupting the imbalances in global knowledge production in intercultural communication. Meta-intercultural ontologies is presented as a rhetoric of knowledging that processes various epistemological exigencies in order to support new frameworks, methodologies and decolonial knowledge production. South-South inter-epistemic dialogue is a form of collective decolonial thinking and acting whereby it is possible to transition from resistance to new insurgencies that interrupt, cultivate and exercise novel articulations and narratives.

One planet: one health. A call to support the initiative on a global science\u2013policy body on chemicals and waste

The chemical pollution crisis severely threatens human and environmental health globally. To tackle this challenge the establishment of an overarching international science–policy body has recently been suggested. We strongly support this initiative based on the awareness that humanity has already likely left the safe operating space within planetary boundaries for novel entities including chemical pollution. Immediate action is essential and needs to be informed by sound scientific knowledge and data compiled and critically evaluated by an overarching science–policy interface body. Major challenges for such a body are (i) to foster global knowledge production on exposure, impacts and governance going beyond data-rich regions (e.g., Europe and North America), (ii) to cover the entirety of hazardous chemicals, mixtures and wastes, (iii) to follow a one-health perspective considering the risks posed by chemicals and waste on ecosystem and human health, and (iv) to strive for solution-oriented assessments based on systems thinking. Based on multiple evidence on urgent action on a global scale, we call scientists and practitioners to mobilize their scientific networks and to intensify science–policy interaction with national governments to support the negotiations on the establishment of an intergovernmental body based on scientific knowledge explaining the anticipated benefit for human and environmental health.

Science, Policy, and Development in Africa: Challenges and Prospects by R. Sooryamoorthy

Reviewed by: Science, Policy, and Development in Africa: Challenges and Prospects by R. Sooryamoorthy Cathy Skidmore-Hess Sooryamoorthy, R. Science, Policy, and Development in Africa: Challenges and Prospects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Opening with the statement, "A great deal is written and known about Africa but not much about science from Africa, or what Africa can give to science" (1), Science, Policy, and Development in Africa posits that Africa-based science would benefit the global production of scientific knowledge as well as individual nations. Sooryamoorthy, a sociologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, has written extensively on technology and science in South Africa as well as the role of science in development in both colonial and postcolonial Africa, and he argues for the need to integrate locally produced science into Africa's development plans. For Sooryamoorthy, it is critical to create knowledge and technological capacity, because production of scientific knowledge is necessary to obtain international funding and is a key component of economic growth. As the gap between rich and poor countries widens in terms of knowledge production, the gap in economic development and wealth also increases. However, national development policies of African countries still contain very little focus on science and technology. To remedy this, Sooryamoorthy suggests that science and development policies be more closely aligned with the objectives expressed in national development plans. He also argues for more African-centered scientific programs. [End Page 226] Science, Policy, and Development in Africa makes a strong argument for the development and use of Africa's human capital. Higher population produces greater demand for technology and a larger amount of human capital from which to draw new methods and invention. Lack of appreciation for scientific research also means that an insufficient number of people know how to carry out scientific research (234). Part of the development of human capital involves the creation of more African scientists and more development plans based in science. This requires institutional capacity. According to Sooryamoorthy, the African continent has a poor record of building institutions for development and advancement. To balance technology transfer, and with science developed locally, education is key. African governments need to rely less on foreign capital and make more use of indigenous knowledge, not just in agriculture and medicine but in development more broadly. This means incorporating local knowledge into the formal education system and breaking with some of the patterns created by history and global capital. Sooryamoorthy notes that under colonialism, scientific inquiry was focused on solving the problems of the colonizers, but he focuses his analysis on the postcolonial period and the challenges to Africanizing science. During the 1960s and 1970s, newly independent African countries often needed to develop institutions, such as universities. These universities were, in turn, concerned with the "Africanisation of research, creation of academic positions and expansion of scientific establishments" (45). However, the global recession of the 1970s and a dip in oil prices slowed the production of science, confined it to universities and the public sector, and limited the growth of universities and the public sector as well. This downturn slowed the Africanization of and growth of African science, because scientific development and collaboration is linked with the growth of universities, the number of students enrolled in the sciences, and gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) (85). Sooryamoorthy's analysis indicates a high correlation between scientific production, wealth, and collaboration with the global scientific community. However, while essential, collaboration is often exploitative in the African context as "Africa is often mined for resources of interest to the international community, and African scientists become the under-recognized workers who collect those resources" (195–96). In regard to this and failures in development policy, Sooryamoorthy notes that the problems of science and technology (S&T) on the continent are twofold: first, social systems of science have not been able to attract "sufficient [End Page 227] political legitimacy" and international cooperation; and second, international aid cannot "replace local and national support in harnessing S&T for development" (285). To develop Africa's human potential and "science from Africa," a policy shift is also important. Sooryamoorthy makes use of Andrew Moravcsik's distinction between policy with science...

India’s counterinsurgency knowledge: theorizing global position in wars on terror

ABSTRACT Within recent critical debates about the geographies and circulations of counterinsurgency knowledge, scholars have focused primarily on dominant centres of power and authority in the global North. Building a framework drawn from critical geography, this article decentres these locations and actors by exploring the global production and circulation of counterinsurgency knowledge from the vantage point of Indian strategic thinkers. Focusing on the work of the Indian think tank the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), the article traces how Indian counterinsurgency knowledge has been produced, packaged and circulated transnationally since the late 1990s. It argues the power and utility that forms of counterinsurgency knowledge command – Indian or otherwise – are never reducible to the essential features of what actors or texts say. Rather, it suggests that counterinsurgency knowledge is produced through particular relations and locations of power-knowledge that define what they represent and where they fit in. It theorizes forms of counterinsurgency knowledge as positions within broader transnational forces, entwined with colonial histories of pacification. In doing so, it illuminates the contestations and forms of work in staging or organizing the world through practices that make some forms, actors, and locations important and relegate others to the peripheries of global politics.

Political Economies of Knowledge Production: On and Around Academic Dependency

AbstractApproaches to the study of knowledge production on a global scale have drawn analogies from the study of political economy, namely, the theories of political economic imperialism and economic dependency, the notion of economic extractivism, and capitalism. Thus, we have the conceptualization of intellectual imperialism, academic dependency, academic extractivism and academic capitalism. This essay focuses on two of these phenomenon, that is, intellectual imperialism and academic dependency, suggesting that they refer to different, yet related, problems in global knowledge production. While intellectual imperialism is a crucial starting point for the understanding of knowledge production in the Third World/Periphery/South, it interacts with academic dependency to maintain the underdevelopment of academia in many communities worldwide.

Political Economies of Knowledge Production: On and Around Academic Dependency

Approaches to the study of knowledge production on a global scale have drawn analogies from the study of political economy, namely, the theories of political economic imperialism and economic dependency, the notion of economic extractivism, and capitalism. Thus, we have the conceptualization of intellectual imperialism, academic dependency, academic extractivism and academic capitalism. This essay focuses on two of these phenomenon, that is, intellectual imperialism and academic dependency, suggesting that they refer to different, yet related, problems in global knowledge production. While intellectual imperialism is a crucial starting point for the understanding of knowledge production in the Third World/Periphery/South, it interacts with academic dependency to maintain the underdevelopment of academia in many communities worldwide.

4 - African Diaspora and its Multiple Academic Affiliations: Curtailing Brain Drain in African Higher Education through Translocal Academic Engagemen

Scholars with multiple affiliations have become more visible by assuming their particular role in redressing global knowledge production inequities. This article explores multiple academic affiliations (MAAs) as one way to curb the effects of brain drain, particularly in African universities. It argues that MAAs, is an effective way to reverse the effects of brain drain and promote brain circulation and sharing. The article proposes the concept of translocal academic engagement (TLAE) as a form of international academic exchange and brain-sharing which is not limited to physical mobility (circulation) from one geographical location to the other, but which includes virtual exchange and knowledge-sharing through blended learning delivery methods, e-pedagogies and the use of digital communication technology platforms such as Communities of Practice. The article concludes by suggesting that MAAs, if properly managed, can be a success factor in TLAE activities, particularly in the age of Web 4.0, in mitigating or shifting currently dominating knowledge production flows. TLAE offers possibilities for a win-win situation of academic exchange between higher education institutions in emerging systems.

Review of research publications on postdoctoral research fellowship: Implications for African institutions

The recent surge in global knowledge production has attracted focus on postdoctoral research fellowship in developed countries, leaving this group of African academics in the shadows. This article reported the results of a systematic review of research of postdoctoral research fellowship. The database of this review comprised 44 mixed sources located via a systematic method. The social justice theory was adopted to analyse and interpret the findings. The analysis of data relied on the use of descriptive statistics and graphing techniques. The review found literature published predominantly in European and Anglo-American societies, affirming the emerging status of the African society in the contribution to global knowledge production. Recommendations were made for funding research activities, curbing brain drain and increasing research output in Africa. The study highlighted milestones of progress along topics, methodologies and “blind spots” for future research practice and apprises evidence based decision making by policy makers.

A REVIEW OF CRITICS AGAINST THE CALL FOR INDIGENOUS SOCIOLOGY IN TURKEY

The call for indigenous sociology is a discussion that reflects reactions to the Eurocentric character of Western sociology and alternative proposals. According to the advocates of this call, Western sociology, based on the social and historical experiences of Western societies, do not allow understanding non-Western societies that have different backgrounds from the West, and that it is also against their interests. It also creates intellectual dependence and inequalities not only in the global production of knowledge, but also in its distribution, circulation and consumption. Therefore, non-Western societies are called upon to build an indigenous sociology. No matter how solid it may sound, this call has also been subject to various criticisms due to some of its limitations. This paper aims to analyze and evaluate the criticisms of the call, which ironically turned into a global call, in the context of Turkish Sociology. The paper argues that the criticisms of this call should be reconsidered within the framework of four main questions: 1) How successful have the followers of the call been in constructing a sociology appropriate to the requirements of the call? 2) Do today's national and global conditions still make this call meaningful and necessary? 3) How does this call affect the disciplinary integrity and scientific identity of sociology? 4) What could be the future of the call? The paper concludes that indigenous sociology is not a utopia.

Mapping practices and spatiality in IR knowledge production: from detachment to emancipation

This article conceptualises the variety of approaches taken by International Relations (IR) scholars around the world to dominant forms of knowledge production in IR. In doing so, it advances Global IR debates along two axes: on practices and on spatiality. We argue that binary conceptions are unhelpful and that engagement with knowledge production practices is best captured by a landscape of complexity, requiring a deeper interrogation of positionality, globality and context. Using 26 qualitative interviews with IR academics at institutions in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa, we construct a typology comprising seven modes of engagement that capture the conflicted relationships to dominant forms and practices of knowledge production in IR. The typology is intended to highlight the variation, complexity and contextual particularities in global IR knowledge production practices and to enable an interrogation of spatial hierarchies that unsettle conventional geopolitical West/non-West fault-lines.

Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. Global Politics, Protesting and Knowledge Production in the Region and Beyond

This paper discusses the current political phase in South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) or Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by contextualising it in global politics. First, the transformations of the nation state and neoliberal capitalism are discussed along with the mobilisational strategies shared among social movements in the region, Europe and North America, Africa, and Latin America. Second, the paper discusses how such transnational developments have influenced the scholarship on SWANA/MENA politics, highlighting a number of epistemological breaks in the content and process of knowledge production.

The Global Knowledge Value Chain on Sustainability: Addressing Fragmentations through International Academic Partnerships

While research on universities’ role in sustainability transitions has flourished in recent years, explorations into the potential of academic internationalization for the promotion of sustainability transitions are still rare. This article aims at contributing to this incipient literature by emphasizing an underexplored property of international academic networks and transnational academic cooperation: their potential to break disciplinary and geographical barriers in the global debates on how transitions towards sustainability can be achieved. When realizing this potential, international partnerships are able to provide more comprehensive knowledge to inform sustainability transitions while shaping sustainability transitions in various places at the same time. This article pursues three objectives: First, it introduces the concept of the “global knowledge value chain on sustainability” and explores its value as a heuristic to understand global knowledge production relevant for sustainability transitions. Furthermore, it identifies two fragmentations in this chain resulting from global inequalities and specific dynamics within the global science community. Second, it confirms empirically the fragmentations of this global knowledge value chain on sustainability. Third, it provides good practice ideas on how international academic partnerships can overcome these fragmentations by drawing on the authors’ experience with the international partnership “trAndeS—Postgraduate Program on Social Inequalities and Sustainable Development in the Andean Region” carried out by the Institute of Latin American Studies of Freie Universität Berlin and the Department of Social Sciences of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru (PUCP).

ERPP practices in the Arab world

Abstract Limited empirical research addresses how Arabic-speaking English as an Additional Language (EAL) scholars approach research writing and its associated challenges despite that many Arabic-Speaking EAL scholars are engaging in global knowledge production outside and inside the Arab World. This is even more the case now than in the past as some Arab universities are prompting proactive research agendas that encourage publishing in high-impact English language journals. This paper examines 20 empirical studies that investigated the research writing and publishing practices of Arabic-speaking EAL scholars, and analyzes the content of those studies according to the scholars’ research drivers and the accompanying challenges they faced when publishing their research in English. This paper also highlights how these challenges are experienced in different universities and countries, emphasizing the complexity of English for Research Publishing Purposes (ERPP) practices even within the same linguistic group. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the growing ERPP scholarship by serving as a starting point for more systematic research on Arabic-speaking EAL scholars.

Reform of research funding processes could pave the way for progress in global health

Reform of research funding processes could pave the way for progress in global health

Making ecology really global

Ecology must flourish globally, especially in a period of unprecedented anthropogenic global change. However, some regions dominate the ecological literature. Multiple barriers prevent global production and exchange of ecological knowledge. The first step towards solutions is acknowledging and diagnosing this inequality and embracing our geographical and cultural diversity.

Making Taiwan Relevant to Sociology: a Case Study on the Publication Pattern in the Major US Journals

Abstract The social science communities in Taiwan face significant difficulties in publishing their studies in top-tier international journals. In this paper, I problematise the phenomenon of international publishing and situate this inquiry within the literature on global knowledge production. I further discuss the ‘small country predicament thesis’ originally framed by Su-jen Huang and the proposed solution—the Moneyball approach. Using the keyword search method, I aim to answer two empirical questions: who and what kinds of papers related to Taiwan get published in the top US sociological journals. The findings of this case study suggest that most of the papers are authored by foreign scholars, most papers were published prior to 2000, and they all share methodological similarities. Comparing this pattern to other Asian countries, the case of Taiwan shows both similarities and differences in facing the challenges of academic publishing.

COVID-19 Pandemic Related Research in Africa: Bibliometric Analysis of Scholarly Output, Collaborations and Scientific Leadership.

Scientometrics enables scholars to assess and visualize emerging research trends and hot-spots in the scientific literature from a quantitative standpoint. In the last decades, Africa has nearly doubled its absolute count of scholarly output, even though its share in global knowledge production has dramatically decreased. The still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the way scholarly research is conducted, published, and disseminated. However, the COVID-19-related research focus, the scientific productivity, and the research collaborative network of African researchers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic remain to be elucidated. This study aimed to clarify the COVID-19 research patterns among African researchers and estimate the strength of collaborations and partnerships between African researchers and scholars from the rest of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, collecting data from electronic scholarly databases such as Web of Science (WoS), PubMed/MEDLINE and African Journals OnLine (AJOL), the largest and prominent platform of African-published scholarly journals. We found that COVID-19-related collaboration patterns varied among African regions. For instance, most of the scholarly partnerships occurred with formerly colonial countries (such as European or North-American countries). In other cases, scholarly ties of North African countries were above all with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In terms of number of publications, South Africa and Egypt were among the most productive countries. Bibliometrics and, in particular, scientometrics can help scholars identify research areas of particular interest, as well as emerging topics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. With a specific focus on the still-ongoing viral outbreak, they can assist decision- and policy-makers in allocating funding and economic-financial, logistic, organizational, and human resources, based on the specific gaps and needs of a given country or research area.