Hovering on the periphery? ‘Decolonising’ writing for academic journals

Abstract

In this Forum, we are creating a space to challenge not only the dominance of English in academic journals, but also ‘metropolitan’ genres of scholarly writing and discourse, and, indeed, the ways in which particular knowledges continue to retain their dominance and to be privileged. We are inviting readers to reflect on how academic writing continues to be ‘colonised’, by problematising it and seeking to ‘decolonise’ it in,order to ‘decentre knowledge that continues to masquerade unquestioned as hegemonic imperialism’ (Kumalo 2018, 13). In doing so, we are striving to ‘rupture a paralysis that can arise from the domination of Northern, usually anglophone, modes of academic communication for non-Northern scholars’ (Manathunga and Grant 2017, 2)