‘But we’re among peers!’

Abstract

Focusing on French social science and humanities journals, this article examines the digital communication surrounding the submission of articles by scholars based in Africa. Using Cameron’s concept of verbal hygiene ([1995] 2012), I analyze the case of negative reactions from editors triggered by stylistic and rhetorical features related to politeness. Through a detailed case study, the paper shows that such negative reactions involve semiotic processes of linguistic and social differentiation that articulate the moralized persona of the author and the scientific value of his/her work. However, editors’ verbal hygiene attitudes are also intertwined with political concerns aimed at promoting the inclusion of scholars from the Global South. In that context, the analysis reveals a complex interplay between the desire for openness and structural patterns of exclusion that enact long-standing hierarchies in knowledge production. Drawing on Inoue’s (2003) theory of the listening subject, I argue that this paradox arises from the reader’s particular position within the globalized academic landscape and from the power structures inherent in the circulation of texts between African and French academic contexts.