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- Convenor:
-
Anne Schumann Douosson
(Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Linguistic and visual (de)colonialisms
- Location:
- Room 1098
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel presents new initiatives in the publishing sector to promote reciprocal perspectives in African Studies, including the open scholarly repository AfricArXiv, the African Studies Library, the African Publishers Database for co-publishing (IAI, SOAS), and the African Books Collective.
Long Abstract:
The call to decolonise African Studies has at first concentrated on the decolonisation of curricula. However attention is now turning to the sector of scholarly communications, and to the renewed initiatives in the publishing sector to promote reciprocal perspectives in African Studies. Due to difficulties with distribution, publications by African publishers have often been inaccessible in European libraries. Simultaneously, publications on research pertaining to Africa in Europe has often been inaccessible in Africa due to high prices and poor distribution. This panel, organised by the research infrastructure committee (Infrastrukturausschuss) of the VAD will present several important initiatives aiming to change this: AfricArXiv is an open scholarly repository making manuscript versions of articles (preprint and post print) available through open access. The African Studies Library (FID Afrikastudien) at the Goethe-University Frankfurt has an acquisition policy of buying exclusively publications from publishers on the African continent and making them findable and accessible through its new portal. The African Books Collective (ABC) is owned by publishers on the African continent and has been formed to tackle the issue of distribution. The International African Institute (IAI) at SOAS, University of London has compiled the African Publishers Database in view of promoting co-publication between European and African publishers.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
African Journals Online (AJOL) promotes African research journals on its journal platform. Research4Life provides free access to academic journals to institutions in the Global South. Both have been working for over 20 years. This paper gives an overview of the results, and looks at new developments
Paper long abstract:
African Journals Online (AJOL), based in South Africa, has been promoting African research journals since 1998. As a journal aggregator platform it now hosts 555 journals based in Africa, including 192,399 full text journal articles, of which 131,291 articles are open access online. Research4Life provides free or low cost access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content online to institutions in the Global South, since 2002. Anno 2022 30,000 journals and 129,000 books in the fields of health, agriculture, environment, applied sciences and legal information are available. How have AJOL and Research4Life developed over a period of more than 20 years, and what were the results in the last 5 years? What developments lay ahead regarding making African research more visible and regarding making research journals in general better accessible in Africa?
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the lived experience of an African Editorial Team of an African academic accredited open access Journal and presents the challenges in the publishing process, beyond and before reciprocal accessibility.
Paper long abstract:
The importance of research by, for, and about African knowledge is undisputed, given the centrality of Africa’s role in global challenges. Yet, creating equitable and sustainable knowledge-sharing processes is fraught with challenges. Support for African knowledge production and the dissemination of this research, albeit troubled by asymmetrical power relations, is increasingly supported. Yet, it is the journal production and journal administration – both central steps in the knowledge production and research sharing process – that poses near-insurmountable challenges.
This paper presents a reflective piece of the Editorial Executive of an open-access academically accredited African Journal, hosted and published in South Africa, edited by African scholars in Africa, and discusses the lived challenges in the knowledge production process. The paper presents categories of journals that thrive in the African knowledge production context, including ‘African’ Journals edited in regions beyond Africa that contribute towards African knowledge production, and also the rise of predatory ‘African’ Journals.
The paper presents our experience of the Editorial Executive of an African Journal wedged uncomfortably into the intersection of the desire to enable fee-free publishing of African authors’ work (no APCs) and to enable fee-free access to the published work of African scholars (no subscription or access fee to the individual) and yet finding ourselves hamstrung by costs for publishers and journal administration.
The authors conclude by identifying the critical points that are currently overlooked in the discourse and politics of African knowledge production and make recommendations on how to resolve some of these barriers.
Paper short abstract:
Many African institutions view reciprocal publishing as neo-colonialism amidst their struggle for the decolonization of knowledge. this paper therefore examines the foregrounding discourses revolving around the Nigerian experience of the ‘politics’ of reciprocal perspectives in publishing.
Paper long abstract:
Despite the efforts made by the academic world in the promotion of reciprocal perspectives in terms of publishing and knowledge exchange, which is championed by the Western world, many African academic institutions view it as the continuation of neo-colonialism amidst their struggle for the decolonization of knowledge. Using both primary and secondary sources, this paper therefore makes an incursion into the foregrounding discourses revolving around the Nigerian experience of the ‘politics’ of reciprocal perspectives in publishing, which is influenced by a number of factors; its colonial experiences, decolonization campaign, the promotion of the African civilization and academic self-worth.
Paper short abstract:
The German publicly funded interdisciplinary project ART-D Grids intends to knit together the complex landscape of disparities of education, research and culture, when addressing the sustainability of mini-grids for electricity supply in rural East Africa.
Paper long abstract:
The project "Africa: Research and Teaching platform for Development - Sustainable Modular Grids for Grid Stability" (ART-D Grids) intends to bridge the complex landscape of disparities of education, research and culture, when addressing the sustainability of rural mini-grids for electricity supply in rural East Africa. An interdisciplinary team of 13 researchers from Uganda (6), Tanzania (3), South Africa (1), Ghana (1) and Germany (2) from different academic disciplines (engineering, economics, social science, and educational science) and cultural backgrounds, develop in collaboration with local communities in Tanzania and Uganda a shared perspective of how to promote and accelerate attainment of Sustainable Development Goal number 7 in rural areas through sustainable electrical mini-grids. On an institutional level, academic entities from the South and the North are participating, business companies, as well as stakeholders from local communities.
Within and among the mentioned groups, we find disparities in academic cultures and approaches to knowledge production (regional, academic disciplines), interests (businesses vs. research vs. survival), as well as to power (real and assumed). These disparities have to be understood as to their productive and destructive potential, and bridged, to bring life to the project as such, as well to be utilised in order to propose meaningful approaches for the subject of the research, the mini-grids embedded in their social-economic environment.
We will explain those disparities, describe the approach the project is taking to overcome those challenges, and try to understand its gaps and limitations.