Publishing policy: Toward counterbalancing the inequalities in academia

Abstract

This article touches upon the problem of inequalities in academia resulting from neoliberal capitalism and existing publishing policy and discusses its possible consequences. Building on the author's own experiences as a researcher working on linguistic minorities and as an academic administrator, it explores how power relations work in parts of the scientific world situated on the peripheries of the Western "centre"- via the neoliberal economy, access to funding and international recognition. Publishing in high-status, English-language journals requires "non-centre"academics to adopt Western conventions of publishing, including in the style of reasoning, the structure of the text, and preferring references from the Anglo-American academic tradition. Only by complying can such researchers secure a place in academia and further their careers. However difficult it may be, the author argues, the hegemony of Western-model knowledge construction may only be questioned from inside, by the "centre"academics.