Taking off camouflage identities: why peripheral scholars strive to look like their Western peers in order to being recognized?

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper we argue that the world-system of global knowledge production, that is, the field of transnational academia, could be conceived as a rather hegemonic and exclusivist social subsystem in which not just the members of the hegemon group, viz. the central agents of the field, but also the underprivileged agents operate in a way that maintains and even reinforces this uneven systemic run. According to our argumentation, the peripheral agents of the system tend to camouflage their identities as non-Western scholars to be acknowledged by the global community. Our subsequent analysis of the dynamics of former emancipatory movements will show that this is a detrimental strategy since assimilation results in homogenization and in losing authentic voices. As opposed to assimilation through camouflaging identity, we propose a systemic protagonism beside geopolitical equality in the world-system of knowledge production through the development of authentic and equal, other than Western, identities in transnational academia.