The whiteness of capitalist publishing models: Decolonizing conversations must interrogate the economics of publishing
As an editor of a major communication journal that is committed to praxis, I have been reflecting on what the practical politics of publishing looks like even as our disciplinary associations pronounce our commitments to diversity, inclusion, and decolonization. How far can we decolonize when our publishing models are based on, held up by, and dependent on the publishing infrastructure of large publishing transnational corporations? Almost all of these large publishing transnational corporations are based in Europe/America, rooted in colonial logics of extraction. The colonial logic underpinning these publishing corporations is evident in the fundamental logic of profiteering that shapes academic publishing. Journals are set up as platforms to publish scholarship, built as infrastructures to generate revenues for transnational publishing corporations. From editors to editorial review board members to reviewers, an entire chain of unpaid or poorly paid academic labour holds up the j