‘Which journal is that?’ Politics of academic promotion in Uganda and the predicament of African publication outlets

IF 1.3 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY
J. Ssentongo
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引用次数: 13

Abstract

Research and publication are some of the practices that define university work and therefore are part and parcel of the key considerations for promoting university-based academics. Whereas this promotion standard is widely appreciated in view of the importance of knowledge production, it raises several questions about the subtexts of its practice and their implications for publication in Africa. Through an empirical qualitative study of two Ugandan universities, this paper examines how promotion policies shape publication outlet choices and Africa-based publication initiatives. I show that promotion processes in Ugandan universities are driven by complex quality checks that are sometimes characterized by rationalized malice against individual academics in settling personal scores and biases against publications from African outlets. With the partial aid of theories of (post)coloniality and Southern theory, I explain the root of Afro-pessimistic biases in promotion criteria and argue that both the genuine quality checks and other neo-colonial biases incentivise publishing in the West and lead scholars to avoid African options. This exacerbates the already challenging circumstances of African publishers, limits local access to marketplaces of knowledge, and shrinks space for epistemic pluralism.
“那是哪本日记?”乌干达的学术推广政治与非洲出版渠道的困境
研究和出版是定义大学工作的一些实践,因此是促进大学学术的关键考虑因素的重要组成部分。鉴于知识生产的重要性,这一推广标准得到了广泛的认可,但它提出了关于其实践的潜语及其对非洲出版的影响的几个问题。本文通过对乌干达两所大学的实证定性研究,考察了促进政策如何影响出版渠道选择和基于非洲的出版倡议。我指出,乌干达大学的晋升过程是由复杂的质量检查驱动的,这些检查有时以针对个别学者的合理恶意为特征,以解决个人得分和对非洲媒体出版物的偏见。在(后)殖民理论和南方理论的部分帮助下,我解释了晋升标准中非洲悲观偏见的根源,并认为真正的质量检查和其他新殖民主义偏见都激励了西方的出版,并导致学者们避免非洲的选择。这加剧了非洲出版商本已面临的挑战,限制了当地进入知识市场的机会,缩小了知识多元化的空间。
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来源期刊
Critical African Studies
Critical African Studies Arts and Humanities-Arts and Humanities (all)
CiteScore
3.00
自引率
0.00%
发文量
19
期刊介绍: Critical African Studies seeks to return Africanist scholarship to the heart of theoretical innovation within each of its constituent disciplines, including Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, History, Law and Economics. We offer authors a more flexible publishing platform than other journals, allowing them greater space to develop empirical discussions alongside theoretical and conceptual engagements. We aim to publish scholarly articles that offer both innovative empirical contributions, grounded in original fieldwork, and also innovative theoretical engagements. This speaks to our broader intention to promote the deployment of thorough empirical work for the purposes of sophisticated theoretical innovation. We invite contributions that meet the aims of the journal, including special issue proposals that offer fresh empirical and theoretical insights into African Studies debates.
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