Engaging the Academy

Abstract

We are witnessing a global turn toward ethno-nationalism and xenophobia that raises important questions about what those who are engaged in scholarly knowledge production are doing to implicitly or explicitly perpetuate ethnocentrism. This chapter focuses on the problem of Eurocentrism, and Americentrism more specifically, in journalism and mass communication studies. Although public engagement typically focuses on sharing scholarly knowledge with audiences outside of academia, scholars need to be open and responsive to critiques of our own professional practices. This chapter first documents inequities in scholarly knowledge production between the Global North and Global South, and then offers a brief contextualization of the structural nature of these inequities. Finally, the chapter recommends specific practices journalism scholars based in the Global North can do to become better allies of their colleagues in the Global South, and highlights recent efforts to engage the academy around the issue of inequities in scholarly knowledge production.