Current Projects & Areas of Interest
The research group currently consists of a series of projects that are all contributing to our main query through different dimensions and relevant sub questions. Below are descriptions of the various projects as well as additional areas of interest:
This project examines content and geographic diversity in development studies journals. It has two main goals: (1) to determine the patterns of contributions of Northern and Southern researchers in development journals published in the global North and (2), to identify the ways their involvement or lack thereof shape knowledge production.
This project is looking to examine various dimensions of the economic/business behavior of the academic publishing industry through a closer look at its top five players. The project hypothesis that concentration in the industry has occurred alongside increasing role of financial players, instruments, and behaviors. As a result, the main goal is to examine patterns of rent seeking, financialization and monopolistic behavior within the industry in order to understand their implications in the production of inequalities and vulnerabilities in knowledge production
This is a joint research project led by G.A.P. in collaboration with OCSDNet, the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network. The project seeks to investigate the structures of power and inequality in knowledge production and policymaking, using the construction of the Open Science discourse as a case study. By tracing the key players behind the formation and dissemination of Open Science policies and documents, we want to question the ideological foundations at the core of this discourse, and the impact this may have on reinforcing global knowledge inequality in the scientific and development fields.
4. Additional Areas of Interest
While data is being collected on the previous two strands, there are several other potential areas of study that would enhance our research. For example, under the theoretical umbrella of ‘technologies of control’, we would like to understand trade, antitrust, and intellectual property policies and the restrictions they pose. Furthermore, we are also curious to know whether the increased prevalence of digital labour, for example, constitutes academic publishing as an extractive industry. If these areas are of interest, please do not hesitate to contact us!