Introduction
The production of academic knowledge is not a neutral enterprise. It is shaped by geography, institution, language, and power, and nowhere is this more evident than in the stark disparities between who publishes and who is published.
This dossier synthesises foundational research and critical literature mapping the systemic underrepresentation of African and global Black academic voices. It highlights structural publishing biases, institutional gatekeeping, the geography of knowledge production, and the lived realities of scholars navigating these inequities.
What emerges is a portrait of an epistemic siege: Black thought, systematically confined behind white gates.
The Geography of Knowledge: Who Speaks and Who Is Silenced?
The disparity in academic publishing is not anecdotal; it is empirically documented. Studies evaluating top-tier international development and communication journals consistently demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of scholarly output is dominated by Northern institutions. A long-term analysis of leading development journals revealed that fewer than one in six articles featured Southern researchers, while roughly 73 percent were authored by Northern researchers (Demeter, 2021).
This pattern extends beyond development studies. A comprehensive scientometric analysis found that over 90 percent of publications in top communication journals were authored by Global North scholars, while less than 10 percent were by Global South scholars. Editorial boards told the same story: the United States alone accounted for 63 percent of board members (Demeter, 2021).
Perhaps the most striking manifestation of this imbalance is what we might call the Africa Paradox: scholarship about Africa, often written without Africans. Research examining high-impact economics and medical journals found that the vast majority of Africa-focused papers, including over 66 percent of literature concerning regional public health crises, were written by researchers based outside the continent (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026).
Even within scholarship explicitly focused on African development, health, and economic policy, authorship skew persists. This dynamic is thoroughly analysed in policy framing documents which outline how structural exclusion leaves local experts on the periphery of policymaking (United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa).
The legacy of Eurocentrism affects knowledge production in subtle but significant ways. Evidence produced in and about the Global North is assumed to be more universal, whereas evidence from or produced in the Global South is considered valid only for specific contexts, that is localised (Hofstra et al., 2022). This dynamic is evident in the phrasing of articles' titles. Examining more than half a million social science research articles indexed by Scopus from 1996 to 2020, Hofstra and colleagues (2022) found that empirical articles written by authors affiliated with Global North institutions, using data from these countries, are less likely to include a concrete geographical reference in their titles. When authors are affiliated with Global South institutions and use evidence from Global South countries, the names of these countries are more likely to be part of the article's title (Hofstra et al., 2022). This constitutes an unwarranted claim on universality and may lead to lesser recognition of Global South studies (Hofstra et al., 2022). These naming gaps are large and consistent across 23 social science subfields, yet naming conventions are merely the tip of the iceberg of the imbalances in knowledge production between the Global North and South (Hofstra et al., 2022).
This is not an accident of geography. Two interlocking systems are at work: the Coloniality of Power, which racialises Black African academics as Other, and the Coloniality of Knowledge, which marginalises their intellectual, theoretical, and experiential contributions (Gatwiri & Udah, 2024). Black academics in predominantly white institutions are systematically seen as out of place, a positioning that compounds their experiences of interpersonal and systemic marginalisation (Gatwiri & Udah, 2024). The consequences are tangible: microaggressions, hyper-surveillance, research alienation, funding gaps, and being passed over for promotion, leading to feelings of exclusion and fractured belonging within academia (Gatwiri & Udah, 2024).
The Gatekeeping Apparatus: Editorial Bias, Linguistic Hegemony, and the Cost of Entry
If the geography of knowledge determines who gets to publish, the gatekeeping apparatus determines what gets published, and under what conditions.
Recent scholarship highlights unethical and structural editorial practices that disproportionately penalise scholars of African origin and the broader Global South (University of Toronto Press, 2025). These include prolonged peer-review delays that slow the dissemination of research from African scholars, unclear or disproportionate desk rejections that lack substantive feedback, stylistic gatekeeping that delegitimises non-traditional frameworks or non-native English writing styles, and exclusion from editorial decision-making processes and under-representation on editorial boards (University of Toronto Press, 2025). These practices are not isolated incidents but reflect systemic biases embedded in global publishing systems. The psychological and professional repercussions for African academics are demonstrated through qualitative evidence and scholarly literature (University of Toronto Press, 2025).
Central to the inequality between Global North and South are the hurdles of language and financial support (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026). Global South scientists face additional efforts non-native English speakers must invest in reading and publishing, higher rejection rates compared to native English speakers, and widespread neglect of publications in languages other than English (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026). These challenges not only hinder the advancement of science but also deepen existing divides (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026). A study of Chilean early-career academics found that they navigated profound identity tensions as they attempted to balance local relevance with global prestige, often finding their work scrutinised not for scientific rigor but for the identity of the researcher (European Journal of Teacher Education, 2026).
High-impact tier-1 journals are predominantly indexed within Western-centric databases like Scopus and Web of Science and often enforce prohibitive open-access publication fees (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026). Without comparable institutional grants or endowment support, academics based in African institutions face severe financial and logistical hurdles just to enter the pipeline (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026). While open access policies democratise access to scientific knowledge, they can inadvertently exacerbate North-South inequalities due to the prohibitive costs associated with open-access publishing, a financial burden that is often unmanageable for researchers with limited funding (Berger, 2023; Mellors & Cole, 2025). This funding gap severely restricts the Global South's scientific capabilities and impact, affecting everything from conducting comprehensive research to attending scientific meetings. The culmination of these disparities not only diminishes the impact of Global South researchers in their fields but also traps them in a cycle of reduced funding and limited global networking opportunities (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026).
A qualitative phenomenological study involving 50 African intellectuals across disciplines identified high article processing charges and limited institutional funding as key obstacles that hinder publication in high-impact journals (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026). Linguistic biases favour English, disadvantaging non-native speakers, while peer review processes often exclude African perspectives, pressuring scholars to conform to Western epistemologies (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026).
Global South scholars bear an additional psychological and intellectual burden. A study of authors from six Global South countries found that they must become shapeshifters, shifting consciousness and inhabiting two or more worlds as they cross borders between Global South and Global North conventions (Naicker et al., 2024). Participants described experiences where their work was deemed irrelevant to Global North audiences, they were unable to interpret rejections, and had learned to play the publishing game by attending to both local and global imperatives (Naicker et al., 2024). These motivations and experiences revealed several practical, academic, and transformational tensions that Global South authors face (Naicker et al., 2024). As one co-author explained, Southern authors have to change how they act and write as researchers in the Global North. They have to mimic what is going on in the Global North when they write for Global North journals. And then they have to shift to doing something different when they write for their own journals in the Global South (Naicker et al., 2024). There is an added burden and risk in performing this shapeshifting, as Global South authors stand astride the borders of two worlds without belonging fully to either (Naicker et al., 2024). This intellectual labour, incurred in understanding foreign epistemic frameworks and producing scholarly work in academic-level English, impacts researchers' confidence, creativity, identity, and emotional integrity (Naicker et al., 2024).
The Diaspora and the Double Bind: Black Academics in the Americas and Beyond
The marginalisation of Black academic voices is not confined to the Global North-South divide. It is a trans-continental phenomenon that manifests differently, but no less painfully, across the Americas, the Caribbean, and the diaspora.
Black academics navigate a paradoxical double bind: they are simultaneously hypervisible, scrutinised as diversity tokens and expected to represent their race, and invisible, as their accomplishments go unrecognised and their scholarship is delegitimised (Settles et al., 2018). Research drawing from 118 interviews with faculty of colour at a research-intensive, predominantly white institution identified six themes related to this dynamic. Faculty of colour experienced hypervisibility when treated as tokens used to represent diversity, alongside invisibility through social and professional exclusion, and epistemic exclusion, a lack of recognition for their scholarship and achievements (Settles et al., 2018).
Black women academics experience this double bind with particular intensity. Comparative studies of British and postcolonial British Caribbean higher education institutions reveal persistent patterns: hypervisibility of race, mammification tropes, hyperinvisibility, and misogynoir (Stewart, Elgoharry, & Simpson, 2025). These intersectional harms are not incidental but structural, and sustained efforts to dismantle systemic oppression are required (Stewart, Elgoharry, & Simpson, 2025).
Faculty of colour, and Black academics in particular, consistently report disproportionate service workloads compared to white colleagues, undervaluation of Indigenous epistemologies within legacy university models, slower career progression, and research alienation and funding gaps (Arday, 2022/2025). Foundational texts and special editions, such as Black Academic Voices: The South African Experience, document the lived realities of institutional isolation, disproportionate service workloads, and the systematic undervaluing of indigenous epistemologies within legacy university models (Black Academic Voices Review).
Moving beyond geographic borders, the systemic exclusion of Black academics is a trans-continental phenomenon. Studies examining Black women in higher education across South Africa, Canada, and the United States reveal persistent headwinds, including targeted online harassment regarding hiring practices, undervaluation of community-grounded research, and slower career progression compared to their non-Black peers (Black Academic Voices Review).
Within the South: Afro-Descendant Erasure in Latin America and Asia
Less frequently documented, but equally significant, is the marginalisation of Black populations within the Global South, in Latin America and Asia, where local national narratives often erase structural anti-Blackness.
In many Latin American countries, Brazil, Colombia, and parts of Central America, national identity has been historically framed through mestizaje (racial mixing) or the myth of racial democracy. In practice, this ideology erases structural anti-Blackness. Black scholars and intellectuals within these countries are expected to assimilate into a default national identity, rendering systemic racism and Afro-descendant epistemologies invisible in mainstream curricula (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). Data from regional studies highlight severe educational disparities: Afro-descendants in Latin America face disproportionate drop-out rates, severe underfunding in Black-majority territories such as the Chocó in Colombia or Bahia in Brazil, and acute lack of representation in tenured faculty positions (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South).
Black populations, Afro-descendants, and African expatriate scholars and students living and working in parts of Asia, including South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, navigate complex forms of structural and social marginalisation (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). Black academics operating within Asian tertiary institutions often experience tokenism or complete erasure. Their intellectual contributions are filtered through monolithic lenses, either exoticised or subjected to rigid xenophobic and colourist hierarchies embedded in local academic labour markets (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). Consequently, securing institutional backing, research grants, or editorial authority within local university publishing houses presents immense hurdles (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South).
Scholars within these contexts experience a double marginalisation: they are excluded by the local academic elite for addressing race or counter-hegemonic frameworks, and simultaneously ignored by Western-centric global journals that view their regional insights as too niche (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). This internal-South marginalisation remains one of the least documented yet most insidious forms of epistemic exclusion (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South).
Resistance and Renewal: Toward Epistemic Justice
Despite the scale of the problem, resistance is not only possible, it is already happening.
The concept of bibliodiversity, the idea that scholarly communities must determine their own agendas and create diverse pathways for varied knowledge circuits, offers a powerful counter-narrative to corporate publishing monopolies (Debat & Babini, 2025). Diamond Open Access models, free to read and free to publish, pioneered in Latin America through networks like SciELO and Redalyc, offer a concrete alternative to commercialised Western paywalls (Debat & Babini, 2025; SciELO Network). These community-led, non-profit initiatives resist the neoliberal capture of scholarly communication and create space for multilingual, locally-relevant scholarship (Debat & Babini, 2025; SciELO Network).
African-led initiatives like AfricArXiv and Baobab provide dedicated platforms that bypass Western gatekeeping, enabling African scientists and academics to share research openly and resist predatory publishing practices (AfricArXiv Portal). These repositories address the urgent need for African-owned open-access preprint servers to circumvent Western gatekeeping (AfricArXiv Portal).
The surge in institutional decolonisation rhetoric has been met with justified critique. Scholars warn against performative box-ticking that fails to address structural whiteness in curricula and the persistent underrepresentation of Black and minority ethnic faculty (Bhambra et al., 2021). Addaquay advocates for reforms that enhance ethical practices, including equitable timeframes, transparent peer reviews, and greater representation of African scholars in editorial positions (University of Toronto Press, 2025). The paper advocates for empirical research to evaluate bias and calls on the publishing sector to integrate universal ethical standards with African intellectual perspectives to promote epistemic justice (University of Toronto Press, 2025).
The epistemic siege is real. Black thought has been systematically confined behind white gates, through geography, language, economics, and institutional power.
Conclusion
But the siege is not unbreakable. Latin American bibliodiversity, African preprint repositories, and the growing movement toward epistemic justice offer pathways to a different future, one where knowledge is not measured by its proximity to the Global North, but by its capacity to speak truth across borders.
The gates are opening. The question is: who will walk through them? And who will hold them open for others?
References
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