This is in connection with the interesting exchange between Neil Pakenham-Walsh and Joseph Ana on the subject of Open Access, where Joseph writes, "Open access is the future. It’s most frustrating to see journals that are closed (reading the article behind pay-wall)", and Neil agrees, "And yet most journals have yet to start their open access journey, thereby limiting the impact of health research. What's stopping them?".
There was a recent set of postings on Open Access in the Real KM journal. One submission, by Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou, was on "The alienation of African knowledge – open access as a pharmakon" (https://realkm.com/2021/01/10/open-access-to-scholarly-knowledge-in-the-... ). Nkoudou's position was from the perspective of colonisaiton - he noted that an effect of open access was to open the floodgates for literature from the colonialist countries. What chance did local knowledge have against such a flood, he asked. He maintained that open access therefore led to "epistemic alienation".
My response to this (https://realkm.com/2022/02/03/open-access-in-sub-saharan-africa/) recognized the risk, but saw no viable alternative: "The main impact of OA is that it has undoubtedly provided Africans with far greater access to non-African literature than ever before. Is that really a bad thing? Surely it has to be up to the reader to carry out the cultural appropriation – the good old caveat emptor – let the buyer beware? Africans (and non-Africans) are also getting access to much more African literature as a result, as well."
Does anyone have views on the impact of Open Access on the decolonisaton of health research?
Best,
Chris
HIFA profile: Chris Zielinski: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is the elected Vice President (and President-in-Waiting) of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue
