Holding space at the margins: a decolonial approach to academic publishing in Africa

ABSTRACT

Publishing in Africa has long been debated among academics in the global south who recognise the marginal status of African academics' ideas and knowledge. Many of the solutions proffered in global north academies, such as internationalisation and collaborative research, often fail to address specific issues that continue to mark the unequal status of publications from the continent because of the location of the interventions. More recently, a growing number of scholars have argued for a decolonial approach to thinking about African academic publishing. The current paper adds to this growing body of literature and examines alternative considerations to publishing in Africa. This article focuses on the idea of space holding as a tool for navigating the publishing world and suggests the conscientious work by editors, experimental writing and thinking, peer learning and identification of scholarly archives that aligns with theoretical and methodological needs of African scholars.

KEYWORDS:

• Holding space
• academic publishing
• decolonial
• experimental writing
• editorial interventions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Cambridge Dictionary. ‘Hold’. https://dictionary.cambridge.org.

2 https://antipodeonline.org/2020/04/22/holding-space-for-alternative-futures-in-academia-and-beyond/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dina Ligaga

Dina Ligaga is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has published in the areas of gender, digital media and popular culture, with a focus on radio drama, tabloid newspapers and social media cultures in Kenya. Her book Women, visibility and morality in Kenyan Popular Media (2020) speaks to issues of gender violence and popular culture. She is also the co-author of Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures, Communities (Wits Press, 2011) and Rethinking Eastern African Literary and Intellectual Landscapes (Africa World Press, 2012).