Knowledge production on decolonial feminism. Implications for epistemic politics

Abstract

This article explores the global production of knowledge on decolonial feminism. While taking stock of recent debates on the epistemic marginalization of Central and Eastern Europe, the article explains European countries' contribution to this study field. Bibliometric information on a sample of 1065 articles indexed in the Web of Science is used to map knowledge production through a co-word analysis based on authors' keywords and co-authorship analysis at country level with the help of VOSviewer. Distinct clusters of interrelated keywords and co-authorship networks point to the (semi)peripheral position of Europe in global co-authorship. Only one quarter of decolonial feminist research is conducted by single or first authors based in Europe. Binary logistic regression identifies article-related indicators associated with the likelihood of a decolonial feminist research originating in Europe. An increase in the number of authors, citations and pages reduces the odds of a study to be initiated in Europe, but the presence of funding acknowledgement and collaboration of co-authors from different countries predict a higher likelihood for a study to originate in Europe. Our outcome variable is positively associated with the increase in the number of references and the closer date of an article's publication. These findings highlight the manufactured ignorance produced by institutional and structural contexts, the impact of broader ideological forces and the politics of location. The development of transnational collaborative ties could balance the power inequalities separating epistemic cultures that cut across the Global North/Global South divide.