Decolonising Academia: Is AUP’s New Partnership Programme Doing Enough to Challenge Western Bias in Scholarly Publishing?

Academia and scholarly publishing have long had a Western bias. North America and Western Europe have an overwhelming monopoly on ‘mainstream’ academic journals.

Many academic publishing organisations claim a ‘global’ image, whilst still predominantly admitting members from Western and commonwealth countries. The Association of University Presses (AUP) has historically been one such organisation. The organisations mission statement is to ‘advance the essential role of a global community of publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge.’ Although AUP has 150 members, only a handful come from countries outside the Western world and commonwealth. In fact, from its founding in the 1930’s until 2017 the organisation was named the Association of American University Presses, and to this day it still has more members from the United States than any other country.

This change in name appears to be part of a larger effort by the organisation to diversify its membership and approach. In 2020 AUP released a statement regarding anti-racism in academic publishing. The release of this statement coincided with the beginning of the international BLM protests in March 2020, however AUP claims to have been planning to release their statement since 2019, after an investigation held in 2017–2018. In early 2021 AUP has released plans for a pilot programme pairing existing publishing houses members with presses from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The aim of the programme is to ‘amplify the work of presses in the “Global South”…’ and to ‘expand the knowledge base of the university press community worldwide.’ The programme will involve ‘organically evolved’ partnerships between member and non-member university presses, where non-members will receive some of the exclusive services AUP offer to their members.

This appears to be an honest attempt by AUP to use its position of power to diversify academia, and uplift voices that might otherwise go unheard. But is this enough to challenge the systematic biases of scholarly publishing in the Western world?

Publication in academic journals requires resources that remain a barrier to many academics from developing nations. Many resources that are used by western publishers are taken for granted, and not considered to be political or discriminatory. Practical measure such as funding and resources would go a long way to uplift academic voices from the developing world. Secondly, the linguistic standards to which we hold academic writing are incredibly exclusive. International scholars may be not only expected to write in a second language, but the articles of non-native writers are often structured differently to the preferred rhetoric and thought patterns of dominant Western academic culture, creating a further barrier to global reputability.

To be truly inclusive, academic publishers must interrogate the discursive and non-discursive ways in which non-western scholars are excluded — non-western scholars cannot be expected to simply adapt and conform to Western standards. Although American and Western dominance is beginning to wane, it is the responsibility of Journals and academic publishers to live up to their ‘international’ claims, and to continue to work to decolonise academic publishing. Providing AUP’s pilot is a success, it could be suggested that the organisation turn their efforts to assisting the funding of non-western publications, and include more diverse organisations on a permanent rather then temporary basis.

· Anderson, P., 2021. Association of University Presses Opens International Pairings Pilot, Publishing Perspectives [Online]. Available at: https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/02/association-of-university-presses-opens-transnational-collaboration-global-south/ [Accessed 15 February 2021]

· Arowosegbe, J.O., 2014. African studies and the bias of Eurocentricism, Social Dynamics vol. 40 iss. 2 [Online]. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.942074?casa_token=41brRtNYNM4AAAAA%3AN-foehL5-NX1pifEmLiSTNzceA4jSu9LxuyY8uhgwBhRMLEh3hPuxr7FgsAg1-rRtuB1AsXHGNSn [Accessed 16 February 2021]

· AUP, 2020. About AUPresses [Online]. Available at: https://aupresses.org/about-aupresses/ [Accessed 15 February 2021]

· AUP, 2020. Membership [Online]. Available at: https://aupresses.org/membership/ [Accessed 15 February 2021]

· AUP, 2021. New Program Encourages Transnational Collaboration Among Scholarly Publishers [Online]. Available at: https://aupresses.org/news/new-program-encourages-transnational-collaboration/ [Accessed 15 February 2021]

· AUP, 2020. Statement on Equity and Anti-Racism [Online]. Available at: https://aupresses.org/about-aupresses/equity-and-antiracism/ [Accessed 15 February 2021]

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· Kim, M-S., 2009. Cultural bias in communication science: challenges of overcoming ethnocentric paradigms in Asia, Asian Journal of Communication vol. 19 iss. 4 [Online]. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01292980903293338?casa_token=ZwkBYjmBt24AAAAA%3AI5vJswsKvU-P1yYpwZEkuaBI425D6w0u65PAkNpxYP2Pwe5x9EtPLCRBGJ6a-UDcTWQ3e9NalUZQ [Accessed 16 February 2021]

· Medin, D.L., Lee, C.D., 2012. Diversity Makes Better Science, Association for Psychological Science [Online]. Available at: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/diversity-makes-better-science [Accessed 21 February 2021]