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.