Decolonizing Knowledge Production: Perspective on Promotion and Tenure Regulations in Palestine and beyond

Abstract:

Using the model of promotion and tenure regulations prevalent in Palestine as an impetus, this article argues that these regulations perpetuate neo-coloniality by localizing and reproducing hegemonic center–periphery relations in academia. This is especially true when it comes to using scientometric criteria in the evaluation of knowledge produced by Arab academics and which gives preference to English language over Arabic language publications, to journals over monographs, and when adopting Western assumptions about the form and substance of academic knowledge production. Consequently, Arab universities expand the reach of Western dominance and its control techniques.

Key Words:

• Arab universities
• Bibliometrics and scientometrics
• Decolonial strategies
• Knowledge production
• Promotion and tenure

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Eric Hooglund, Editor of Middle East Critique for his thorough copy editing of the article, express their gratitude to the reviewers for their comments, and in particular, to having alerted the authors to recently developed Arabic language translation outlets, journals and metrics.

Disclosure Statement

The International Development Research Centre supported the research for this article under Grant 109739-001.

Notes

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28 Wael Benjaloun (2017) Scientific Research and Arab Universities. In: Universities and Academic Research in the Arab World, pp. 49–67 (Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies), p. 58 (in Arabic).

29 Canagarajah, "Nondiscursive" Requirements in Academic Publishing; Francis Adyanga Akena (2012) Critical Analysis of the Production of Western Knowledge and its Implications for Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonization, Journal of Black Studies, 43(6), pp. 599–619.

30 Ibid, p. 460.

31 Diana Hicks, Paul Wouters, Ludo Waltman, Sarah de Rijcke & Ismael Rafols (2015) The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics, Nature, 520, pp. 429–431, at p. 430.

32 Canagarajah, "Nondiscursive" Requirements, p. 437.

33 Syed Farid Alatas (2003) Academic Dependency and the Global Division of Labour in the Social Sciences, Current Sociology, 51(6), pp. 599–613, at p. 602.

34 Michel Foucault (1980) Power/knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon Books), p. 82.

35 Ibid.

36 Françoise Salager-Meyer (2008) Scientific Publishing in Developing Countries, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7(2), pp. 121–132.

37 Alan Sangster (2015) You Cannot Judge a Book by its Cover, Accounting Education, 24(3), pp. 175–186.

38 Gregorio González-Alcaide, Juan Carlos Valderrama-Zurián& Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent (2012) The Impact Factor in Non-English-Speaking Countries, Scientometrics, 92(2), pp. 297–311.

39 Suresh Canagarajah (1996) "Nondiscursive" Requirements in Academic Publishing.

40 Ernest Boyer (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching).

41 Barbara Kehm & Tero Erkkila (2014) Editorial: The Ranking Game, European Journal of Education 49(1), pp. 3–11.

42 Hall & Page, Following the Impact Factor, Tourism Management, 51, pp. 309–312.

43 Philip Altbach (2009) Peripheries and Centers: Research Universities in Developing Countries, Asia Pacific Education Review, 10(1), pp. 15–27.

44 Hall & Page, Following the Impact Factor.

45 Mahmoud Abdel-Aty (2012) Indices to Quantify the Ranking of Arabic Journals and Research Output, CoRR abs/1205.0003, available online at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0003. Accessed February 18, 2021.

46 Basil Aboul-Enein, H. Joshua Bernstein & Jacquelyn Bowser (2017) Peer Reviewed Public Health Journals from Arabic Speaking Countries: An Updated Snapshot, Journal of Public Health Policy, 38(1), pp. 146–157.

47 Zahiruddin Khurshid (2014) Measuring the Quality of Contributions of Saudi Authors to LIS Journals Using Journal Impact Factor (JIF), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), and Google Scholar Metrics (GSM), The Serials Librarian 67 (1), pp. 81–98.

48 Barbara Kehm & Tero Erkkila (2014) Editorial: The Ranking Game, European Journal of Education 49 (1), pp. 3–11.

49 Richard Hodson, Mahmoud Ashour, Aaron Ballagh & Alexander Scherrmann (2017) Leader of the Pack, Nature, 549 (7673), pp. 62–63.

50 Said Al-Siddiki (2017) The Position of Arab Universities in International University Rankings, in Universities and Academic Research in the Arab World, pp. 119–145 (Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies), at pp. 136–137 [In Arabic].

51 Abbas Varij Kazemi & Azadeh Dehqhan Dehnavi (2017) The New Academic Proletariat in Iran, Critique, pp. 141–158, at p. 155.

52 Kamal Abouchedid & Diane Nauffal (2019) Promotion Policies and Recruitment in Select Key Universities in the Arab Region. (Beirut: The Arab Council for Social Sciences), available online at: http://www.theacss.org/uploads/cke_documents/AbouChedid-Nauffal_Promotion-Policies-and-Recruitment-in-Selective-Key-Universities.pdf. Accessed August 6, 2021.

53 Diana Hicks, Paul Wouters, Ludo Waltman, Sarah de Rijcke, & Ismael Rafols (2015) The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics, in Nature, 23, p. 430.

54 David Hartley (1995) The ‘McDonaldization’ of Higher Education: Food for thought?, Oxford Review of Education, 21(4), pp. 409–423; Marianne Paiva (2015) The McDonaldization of Higher Education, available online at: http://www.ethnography.com/2015/01/the-mcdonaldization-of-higher-education/, accessed Dec. 30, 2020.

55 Hartley, The ‘McDonaldization’ of Higher Education.

56 Peter Bratsis (2020) Covid and the Crisis in Capitalist Universities, The Gadfly Online, 30 November, available online at: https://thegadflybmcc.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/covid-and-the-crisis-in-capitalist-universities/, accessed Dec. 30, 2020.

57 Peter Marcus Kristensen (2015) How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-officials in International Relations Discourse, Third World Quarterly, 36(4), 637–653, p. 648.

58 Paul Findley (1989) They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, p. viii.

59 Edward Said (1984) Permission to Narrate, Journal of Palestine Studies, 13(3), 27–48, p. 30.

60 Mahmood Mamdani (2020) Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University), p. 254.

61 Ibid.

62 Gilbert Achcar (2020) On the ‘Arab Inequality Puzzle’: The Case of Egypt, Development and Change, 51(3), pp. 746–770, at p. 747.

63 Edward Said (1985) Orientalism Reconsidered, Cultural Critique, 1(1), pp. 89–107, at p. 107.

64 Selcuk Besir Demir (2018) Predatory journals: Who publishes in them and why? Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), pp. 1296–1311; Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale, Olayinka Akanle, Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran & Kamorudeen Adegboyega (2014) Peripheral scholarship and the context of foreign paid publishing in Nigeria, Current Sociology 62(5), pp. 666–684.

65 Examples are a series of journals in the social sciences and humanities published by the Doha-based

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. For an overview of these journals, see: https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/booksandjournals/pages/journals.aspx, accessed 6 August 2021. Other examples also exist such as Idafat: The Arab Journal of Sociology”, published in Beirut by the Arab Society for Sociology in collaboration with the Centre for Arab Unity Studies, available online at: https://caus.org.lb/en/idafat-journal/, accessed 30 January 2022.

66 Said Al-Siddiki (2017) The Position of Arab Universities in International University Rankings. In: Universities and Academic Research in the Arab World, pp. 119–145 (Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies), p. 143. (In Arabic)

67 Association of Arab Universities (2016) Arab Impact Factor. Available online at: https://www.arabimpactfactor.com/pages/tasnif.php. Accessed 6 August 2021. (In Arabic)

68 Ernest Boyer (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching).

69 Most prominent among these endeavors are the National Center for Translation in Cairo, the work of the Arab Organization for Translation, and the “Turjman” series, launched at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha.

70 Wael Benjaloun (2017) Scientific Research and Arab Universities, in Universities and Academic Research in the Arab World, pp. 49–67, at p. 60 (Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies) (in Arabic).

71 Ersel Aydinli & Julie Mathews (2000) Are the Core and Periphery Irreconcilable? The Curious World of Publishing in Contemporary International Relations, International Studies Perspectives, 1(3), pp. 289–303, at p. 298.

72 Peter Marcus Kristensen (2015) How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-officials in International Relations Discourse, in Third World Quarterly, 36(4), p. 637–653, at p. 643.

73 Anna Agathangelou & L. H. M. Ling (2004) The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poisies of Worldism, in International Studies Review, 6(4), pp. 21–50, at p. 31.