Western-centricity in Academia

Most international academic journals are produced in Europe and the United States, and whether or not they are considered objective and inclusive forums for worldwide academic research, they are subtly imbued with elements of their own culture. First of all, the language, is, in most cases, English, but not Outer Circle Englishes or English as a Lingua Franca, but specifically British and/or American English. And this obviously creates a big barrier for authors who are not fluent in these varieties, which partly explains the dearth of authors coming from areas outside Europe and, more specifically, the United Kingdom and North America. After the language itself, the problem lies in all the western cultural elements that are found in the journals. The dates, for example, are always expressed in western terms such as the Christian era. Or the names of the authors in the references, which follow the western convention of the surname followed by the first name/s (or initials), which is at odds with the patronymic systems normally used in Muslim countries where no family names exist, for example. This paper discusses these issues and tries to offer some possible solutions

Convention · Language barrier · Lingua franca · Linguistics · Media studies · Odds · Political science · Sociology · History · Law · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research

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