Controlling Knowledge and the Role of Engaged Intellectuals

Has there been a major (epistemic) transformation towards more balanced global knowledge production or have inequalities been intensified? How are terms defined or what do we understand by ‘global knowledge production’ or ‘epistemic inequality’? How can we adapt our research topics or methods to shape a more egalitarian (global) kind of knowledge? Can we identify the (conscious) ‘gatekeepers’ of epistemic exclusion; for example, disciplinary conventions, modi operandi of publication and funding schemes, or interiorized ‘colonial’ practices? And if so, what can we do about them at conferences, in the publishing and funding sectors? How can privileged scholars engage in critical self-reflection of their academic practices – both at a theoretical and methodological level but also in everyday practices? By means of addressing these questions in a variety of ways, the aim of the issue is to investigate to what extent, how and why institutional, financial and ideological factors restrain the manoeuvring spaces, and how scholars, artists and civil society institutions can sensitise for, unmask, and resist them.

Editorial team: Jonathan DeVore, Andrea Hollington, Sinah Kloß, Tijo Salverda, Nina Schneider, Oliver Tappe