Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses how technology, such as the Internet, may be used to overcome the Euro-American hegemony over what is published and read by anthropologists.

Paper long abstract:

Today, a clear Euro-American hegemony can be seen in Anthropological knowledge over what is published and read globally. On-line databases such as the Web of Science and Google Scholar illustrate this fact where most books and articles published and works cited come from the Euro-American core. The issue is not simply of lacking funding in the developing world, and raises the question whether forces behind the dissemination of anthropological knowledge are reverting back to the ethnocentric sentiments reminiscent of the discipline's initial foundations. With technology, such as the Internet, easing communication between the developed and developing worlds, why has this hegemony persisted to exist? How can technology be used to overcome this double-standard within the discipline?

The World Council for Anthropological Associations (WCAA) has recently begun to upload a list of world publications (http://www.wcaanet.org/publications.shtml), providing an equal platform for accessing lesser known journals from the developing world. How effective has this model been? Where some users have raised concerns about the functionality of the list, others have questioned the credibility of the lesser known journals posted there. What is needed, then, is a platform to not simply show, but popularize such journals. The WCAA also offers this opportunity by hosting a blog; however, more discussion is needed to truly feel the effects of this effort. Indeed, the only way to experience cultural relativity in the world of publishing, I argue, is to encourage mutual conversation between anthropologists from both the developing and developed worlds.