Maria Faciolince

This article explores some of the consequences of open access (OA) for scholars in the global South, centring on what constitutes their equal participation in the global circuit of knowledge production. Building on critical reflections by contributors to the 'Power Shifts' project within the From Poverty to Power blog, the limitations of the OA model are shown to be tied to a series of structural features characteristic of the twin systems of academic research and publishing. What the challenges faced by many scholars in the global South demonstrate is that 'openness', or inclusion in this format, is not yet the guarantee for equality that many had hoped. The article frames this as a systemic knowledge issue at a global scale that cannot be remedied by a simple reform to academic publishing. The article points to some creative efforts by scholars to forge alternative models for scholarly communication that move away from a marketized and restrictive model of knowledge production, and towards epistemic justice. The authors conclude that while OA represents a positive step forward in making knowledge a public good, it is no substitute for a more comprehensive rethink to pluralize our ways of knowing.

The idea that investment in the skills and labor of women is the key to propelling economic growth in the global South – coined as “smart economics” – is critically analysed, framing its utilitarian economics as a depoliticizing myth of female empowerment. Taking the case of domestic labor in Latin America, an intersectional approach shows that increasing women’s participation in the labor force may come as a double-edged sword within a labor market that exerts downward pressure. The promise of economic empowerment may misjudge the maneuvers women can perform within a world characterized by resilient gender bias and structural barriers. Access to paid work may take some of us in the right direction, but it will require stopping at various junctures to question who is being taken and what patterns emerge at intersecting social identities like class, race and gender. Earning in the productive sphere may bring financial benefits, but paid labor is a restricted vehicle for women’s agency – that is, for true choice.

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. As a TCK, the author has allowed her familiarity with the subject to lead the semi-formal conversations that conformed the ethnographic data. In an effort to develop some concepts that will permit a productive analysis of the TCK ‘community in limbo’, some intersecting points are identified at which ambiguities necessarily arise: notions of place, ‘home’, belonging, and identity. The interpretation of the ethnographic data is thus largely couched in the discourse on personal narrative, focusing on how the informants accommodate conceptualizations of such analytical nodes.

The physicalistic and mechanistic view of Western biomedicine provides a convenient escape route from explanations of phenomena like the placebo effect, “sham” or “inert” treatments having the faculty to rally the healing process by causing objective changes in physiological functioning. Because anthropology is dialectical and comparative in its approach, it establishes a biocultural dialogue in its interpretations. Anthropologists speculate that what is overlooked are the systems of beliefs and expectations of patients. Local cultures present traditional ideas of what sickness is and of what to expect, reinforced by processes of socialization and communication. In portraying placebos as ultimately “culturogenic”, products of culturally-derived expectations that interact directly with individual physiology, anthropology has provided what is a refreshing narrative for the understanding of medical phenomena such as the placebo effect.

Major development projects, particularly in the mining sector, are imagined as essential to the creation of a durable peace in Colombia. This paper reviews the limits of such imaginations through a focus on the phenomenon of displacement to better understand the complex ways in which dispossession shapes current notions of violence, and hence peace, in Colombia.

The analysis focuses on El Cerrejón, the largest open-pit coal mine in Latin America, analysing the interactions of local communities, mining companies and the state. Using ideas of territory and place as loci for understanding how territorial regimes are constructed and contested, the analysis opens the scope of displacement to explore its temporal and affective dimensions. Re-conceptualising displacement as an intricate loss of place, and with it, the loss of values, identities, livelihoods, and meanings imbued in spaces, can help clarify the complex geographies of suffering wrought by extractive logics, which may imperil peace-building projects.

This conference paper is based on my MSc dissertation research.