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Academic Knowledge
Production and
the Global South
Questioning Inequality
and Under-representation

Márton Demeter
 Academic Knowledge Production
and the Global South

“Critique of global hierarchies along with aspirations to decolonize knowledge

have increased significantly in Western academia over recent decades. And yet
this critique has hardly upset the global hierarchies that it has decried. In this
book, Márton Demeter opens the closet to expose the skeleton of a production
of academic knowledge that remains heavily determined by its location in the
Global North.”
—Professor Gilbert Achcar, SOAS University of London, UK

“Can the subaltern speak in communication studies? This is a deceptively simple

question and, although recent arguments for the de-Westernization of commu-
nication studies take the answer for granted, Demeter’s elegantly theorized and
empirically detailed analysis shows that the reality is more complex than we
thought. Scholars and institutions truly committed to the internationalization
of knowledge will find this book to be an indispensable guide to fully under-
standing the challenges and crafting solutions. I enjoyed reading the book and I
hope that it gets the wide attention it deserves.”
—Professor Larry Gross, University of Southern California, USA

“Márton Demeter’s monograph invokes rich anecdotal, empirical and sciento-

metric evidence to delineate the contours of a world system that preserves the
dominance of Western knowledge and scholars and the westernisation or periph-
eralisation of the rest—a system defined by geopolitical and material inequali-
ties, socio-economic class differences, institutional elitism and publishing biases.
Demeter’s work counters narratives that present academia as meritocratic and
that justify disparities in world publications on the basis of pure rigour, exposing
rather norms and values that perpetuate a western elitist system and peripher-
alise those who happen to lack this cultural capital. Demeter’s work adds to an
expanding field of research documenting how Anglophone standards and biases
in journal indexing, peer review and editorial board recruitment marginalise
consistently the Global South. His practical and concrete suggestions to subvert
this system of horizontal and vertical inequalities could not be timelier and pro-
vides momentum to decolonisation movements in higher education across
the world.”
—Dr Romina Istratii, SOAS University of London, UK
ii 

“Márton Demeter is a scholar dedicated to revealing the inequality in academic

publishing and a strong advocate for scholars from the Global South. This book
is an epitome of his effort on this cause. Demeter utilizes his wealth of data
including authorships, citations, journal publishers, editorial review board com-
positions, the reviewers and the editors of journals as strong evidence of inequal-
ity with his three-dimensional model of academic stratification. This book is a
must-read for scholars both in the Global North and the Global South to reflect
on the current state of academic knowledge gatekeeping and production. It will
spark a dialogue between scholars to address the dominance of the Global North
especially in the field of communication.”
—Professor Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University, USA

“Márton Demeter’s analysis and critique of the unequal structure of global

knowledge production is a powerful contribution to the global justice move-
ment with dramatic implications for what academics in both the Global North
and the Global South can do to help science and the humanities live up to their
claims of meritocracy and universality. Demeter employs a useful critical combi-
nation of the world-systems perspective and Bourdieusian field theory to orga-
nize the results of his careful and sophisticated empirical studies of global
knowledge production. He is an intrepid protagonist of a more egalitarian
human future.”
—Professor Christopher Chase-Dunn, University of California,
Riverside, USA
 Márton Demeter

Academic
Knowledge
Production and the
Global South
Questioning Inequality
and Under-representation
Márton Demeter
Department of Social Communication
National University of Public Service
Budapest, Hungary

ISBN 978-3-030-52700-6    ISBN 978-3-030-52701-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52701-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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 Preface

As all authors, I also have my reasons for writing this book. Books are
neither born, nor function in an ideologically, culturally and politically
neutral vacuum, and they also reflect the position and the personal expe-
riences of the author. This holds true not only for books in the humani-
ties and social sciences, but also for works in the natural sciences, as they
are also the results of culturally, politically and ideologically determined
traditions. Still, from among different disciplines, the social sciences have
a distinctive position since they are by definition permeated with cultural
and political traits. Therefore, it is of crucial importance in the social sci-
ences that authors disclose their positions in order to avoid even the
appearance of impartiality in the strict sense, as even the natural sciences
are far from being objective, that is, independent from personal attitudes.
At the same time, since academic books, unlike works of fiction, are not
written with the direct purpose to express the personality of the author,
to engage, entertain or emotionally involve readers, they should represent
a more general position, something beyond the author’s own experiences.
Thus, when authors disclose their positions, they should also determine
which people might share this position.
Partiality is a very common feature of our societies, and most of us
have personal experiences from both sides of partiality. Most of us have
been, in some instances, the beneficiaries of partiality and favoritism,

v
vi Preface

while we have also found ourselves on the downside at other times. It is

always easy to see favoritism when we are in the disadvantaged position,
while the same unfair practice might seem totally feasible when we are
part of the privileged group. When we were children, we might have
experienced how it felt to be the black sheep in our communities, or how
teachers showed favoritism towards undeserving children because they
came from rich or influential families. Later in high school and univer-
sity, we might experience that some ideas, despite their trivial or even
irrelevant nature, are considered important and noteworthy, just because
they were expressed by important people. A mere annoyance in the fields
of art, media or entertainment, this phenomenon is however inadmissi-
ble in the field of science, where merit should be the principal criterion.
Still, by the time I finished my Ph.D., I started to conjecture that this
negative tendency is an essential part of the field of academy as well.
As a scholar educated exclusively in the periphery, namely in Hungary,
a relatively small Eastern European country, it was evident to adapt to our
regional standards. We were educated by professors who had a national
reputation, but without, in most cases, considerable international experi-
ence. Still, since I am a member of the younger generation educated after
the end of the socialist era, we started to explore the possibilities of mak-
ing our voices heard to a wider community. Our first attempts were so
disappointing that most scholars from my generation (excluding those
elite students who were able to be educated at the West) quickly gave
upon the idea of having an impact on international academia, and started
to condemn Western exclusivism without making any serious attempts to
change it. Another type of young researchers that I usually call “centro-
philes” start instead to worship Western scholarship, all while being
ashamed of their inferior academic culture and scholarly merits. I have to
confess that I was a centrophile myself for a few years, and then some-
thing changed. In the first few years, my articles were rejected from elite
journals. There were various reasons, but I started to understand that, as
a peripheral author, I have to submit extremely strong papers in order to
be published. Once one of my papers was rejected because, allegedly, the
sample in my analysis was too small (it included only 93 journals from
the 400 journals published in communication). A month later I found
that, in the same journal, a very similar article was published in which
 Preface vii

two English professors from prestigious universities analyzed no more

than five journals. In my case, the 93 journals sample was too small, but
five journals were more than enough in the case of authors from a Russel
Group university. After this, I submitted a paper to the same journal in
which I analyzed the full sample, more than 400 periodicals, and, after
the so-called rigorous peer review process, my paper was published this
time. This was when I realized that authors from the periphery might
have to do a 100 times more effort than their central peers if they wanted
to make their voices heard. I also realized that most likely all of my
peripheral peers were suffering from the same obstacles, and I started to
relinquish the idea that central scholarship was inherently superior.
Similarly, when I started to present my research at the most prestigious
international conferences of my field, I realized that sometimes professors
from elite universities could present almost anything, while my periph-
eral peers had to do their best performance in order to attract any atten-
tion at all to their research. After a few dozen international conferences, I
developed the unshakeable conviction that central scholars from elite
universities are neither smarter nor more hardworking nor more talented
than their peripheral peers: they are only in a much more privileged posi-
tion. As a former centrophile, it was a real conversion, and from that time
onwards, I began dedicating all of my professional efforts to the analysis
of inequalities in global knowledge production. My first papers were
almost exclusively empirical, since it is very hard to get your critical paper
published when you are an invisible peripheral author. I had to publish at
least a dozen empirical papers on academic inequalities in elite central
journals before my first critical paper was published, and it took a consid-
erable time before any journals and international conferences invited me
to present critical studies on this issue. This was a long and hard journey,
and all empirical evidence shows that this road to international visibility
is much harder when one starts out from the periphery than from the
center. All the pages of this present book tell this story from different
perspectives. By shedding light on the serious inequalities in the world-­
system of knowledge production, my book aims to help to change the
uneven operation of the field, and make my peripheral colleagues’ way
into international visibility easier. But this highly needed change of the
world-system would serve not just the emancipation of peripheral
viii Preface

knowledge: it would also serve the interests of the global academic com-
munity and through that, it would be beneficial for all humanity. It is my
firm conviction that talent is universal and is equally distributed all
around the world. Consequently, the knowledge of different regions of
the world should be proportionally communicated and disseminated in
the world-­system of global knowledge production and it is inadmissible
that a small central part of the world accounts for almost the totality of
global scholarly knowledge.

Budapest, Hungary Márton Demeter

 Acknowledgements

To end the cultural and intellectual subordination of the periphery, and

to develop a more just global knowledge production, peripheral and cen-
tral agents should work shoulder to shoulder. I am extremely proud of
and grateful to all my comrades, from both the periphery and the center,
who have helped me, and continue to help me in this endeavor. First of
all, I am extremely grateful to my family, since, while they have not always
clearly understood what I do, they have helped, supported and protected
me throughout my studies. I would not have been able to complete my
studies without my grandmother’s continuous assistance—she was always
full of love and support, without thinking about the returns on her life-­
long investment. Similarly, my wife Erika has been with me in both my
joy and grief throughout my journey, and my lovely children—Irma, Ella
and Aron—always fill me with positive energy.
Regarding professional support, I give kudos for as many colleagues
that counting their names would fill an individual chapter. Still, I have to
name some of them. My teacher in mathematics, Dr. Ambrus Árpádné
was the first person to truly believe in my talent. My doctoral supervisor
Özséb Horányi taught me to think hard. I have learned from my
Hungarian friends and colleagues a lot, especially from János Tóth, Zoltán
Ginelli and Tamás Tóth, who work on similar topics as myself. I am
grateful to Louisa Ha for her continuous support, and to Larry Gross,

ix
x Acknowledgements

Christopher Chase-Dunn, Federico Navarro and Gilbert Achcar for the

same reasons. Romina Istratii from SOAS is my colleague and coauthor,
and has also taught me a lot about courage and vocation. Manuel
Goyanes, my Spanish friend and coauthor is one of the most inspiring
and hard-working scholars I have ever met. I am also obliged to my edi-
tors Eleanor Christie, Rebecca Wyde and Ruby Panigrahi at Palgrave, and
to my proofreader Marie-Josée Sheeks.
 Contents

Part I Theoretical Considerations   1

1 Introduction  3

2 The Stories Are Written by the Victors: Theoretical

Considerations 25

Part II Empirical Evidences and Practical Considerations  61

3 The Dynamics Behind the Problem of Inequality: The

World-System of Global Inequality in Knowledge
Production 63

4 The Rise of the Global South 85

5 Collecting Academic Capital105

xi
xii Contents

6 Gatekeepers of Knowledge Dissemination: Inequality in

Journal Editorial Boards137

7 Global Academia and Reeducation153

8 Technical Appendix181

Index191
 About the Author

Márton Demeter is an associate professor at the National University of

Public Service in Budapest, Hungary, and also a Bolyai Research Fellow
at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His critical works on global aca-
demic inequalities have been widely published in leading periodicals of
his field, such as International Journal of Communication, Journal of
World-Systems Research, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly,
Journalism, and Journalism Practice.

xiii
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The structure of the three-dimensional model of academic

stratification. (Source: Demeter 2019c) 43
Fig. 2.2 Stratification of capital accumulation on the social dimension
of the model 44
Fig. 5.1 Distribution of world regions in development studies
publication output from the 1960s to the 2010s. (The author’s
calculation)114
Fig. 5.2 Distribution of world regions in educating development
studies scholars. (The author’s calculation) 116
Fig. 5.3 Career trajectories in development studies by mobility.
(The author’s calculation) 117
Fig. 5.4 Cooperation patterns in development studies by
co-authorship. (The author’s calculation) 118
Fig. 5.5 Patterns of mixed (GN-GS) co-authorship in the sample.
Thicker lines represent higher weights, which mean more
frequent co-authorship between the linked countries.
(Source: Demeter 2018) 126
Fig. 5.6 Education and career paths from the Global South to the
Global North (the width of the edges represents the
frequency of a given path). (Source: Demeter 2019) 127

xv
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 The three-dimensional model of power relations in global

academia42
Table 2.2 Key statistics for the Global North and South by Publons 47
Table 2.3 Contributions of world regions to the Journal of
Communication for 2013–2014 and 2016–2017 52
Table 4.1 Contribution of world regions in different disciplines from
1975 to 2017, by the affiliation of authors of research
articles indexed in SCI/SSCI WoS 88
Table 4.2 Longitudinal representation of the contribution of different
world regions in communication studies 89
Table 4.3 Distribution of humanities journals from different world
regions in 2000 90
Table 4.4 Distribution of humanities journals from different world
regions in 2018 90
Table 4.5 Distribution of social science journals from different world
regions in 2000 91
Table 4.6 Distribution of social science journals from different world
regions in 2018 91
Table 4.7 Distribution of authors from different world regions
in 2000 and 2018 in Scopus-indexed humanities journals 92
Table 4.8 Distribution of authors from different world regions
in 2000 and 2018 in Scopus-indexed social science journals 92

xvii
xviii List of Tables

Table 5.1 The number of Global South authors by world regions in

the sample 125
Table 5.2 Matrix of the main network features of Global South world
regions132
Table 6.1 Contributions of different world regions to global academia
in communication and media studies in terms of data
collection site, authorship and editorial board membership 143
Table 6.2 Publication output of Scopus-indexed Eastern European
journals, by world regions 146
Table 6.3 Representation of world regions on editorial boards in
Scopus-indexed Eastern European journals 147
Table 6.4 Average representation of world regions in journal authors
and editorial boards in Scopus-indexed Eastern European
journals148
Table 7.1 Typical central and peripheral features in global knowledge
production166
Table 7.2 World-systemic positions in global knowledge production 169
 Part I
Theoretical Considerations
 1
Introduction

A few years ago I attended a conference in Liverpool, UK. The scope of

the meeting was international journalism, and thus included an extraor-
dinarily colorful palette of participants from different parts of the world.
However, I definitely missed my fellow Eastern European colleagues and
it was only on the third day that I heard a Hungarian word for the first
time. Unfortunately, it was not part of a sophisticated academic argu-
ment, but the Hungarian version of the F-bomb, since the cleaning
woman had accidentally dropped something outside the conference hall
and felt that she had to label the situation in her mother tongue. That
evening, I checked some statistics and found that there are about 500,000
Hungarians in the United Kingdom, most of them in the capital city, but
typically live in low-income areas and would be unlikely to frequent pres-
tigious places like conference halls and other venues of academic meetings.
Of course, this book is not about my personal experiences, but I will
never deny the fact that academic inequality as it is experienced by all
researchers of the Global South and by all scholars without an elite edu-
cation is the fuel of research on power relations in global academia for
many scholars, including myself. It is no surprise that most researchers in
women’s studies and feminism are female, most academics writing about

© The Author(s) 2020 3

M. Demeter, Academic Knowledge Production and the Global South,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52701-3_1
4 M. Demeter

gender and LGBTQ inequality are members of the LGBTQ community,

and that the social movements against racism have been initiated by peo-
ple with an ethnic background other than white. Similarly, the systematic
bias against Global South academics is one that is mostly investigated by
Global South authors, not only because they are the devalued, often
exploited participants of this global inequality, but also because Global
North academics often have the privilege of never having to encounter
the problems of their Global South peers. This does not mean, of course,
that Global North academics are evil or uncaring; instead they are, to
some extent, blind to the problems of their Global South colleagues.
While this is the typical case, there are many Global North academics
that face similar problems as their geopolitically disadvantaged peers,
namely elitism, exclusion and exploitation. These are the academics that
work in a periphery-within-the-center position, either because they are
working in downgraded institutions such as state universities or commu-
nity colleges maintained for the masses, because they belong to a disad-
vantaged minority or are from the lower social classes (Arunachalam
2002; Bourdieu 1996). Thus, academic inequalities, academic oppression
and academic exploitation could be observed and experienced on both
geopolitical and societal levels. Consequently, I consider it my duty to
define my position as a scholar working on the topic of academic inequal-
ities. I come from a Hungarian working class family, and consequently, I
have a typical education pattern of relatively talented working-class peo-
ple: attending local schools and a state university reserved for the mass
education of the non-elite classes. As soon as I had finished my Ph.D., I
started to perceive the consequences of my peripherality. It was extremely
hard to find an academic job, since even in Hungary, academic positions
are—albeit informally—maintained for the elite. It was also extremely
difficult to publish in elite international journals. On one occasion, I
submitted a paper to a not too highly-rated but still internationally rec-
ognized journal that desk-rejected my article. A few months later, I found
out that the same journal had published an article very similar to mine by
an American professor, one which was not only considerably lower in
quality than my proposed title, but even contained some paragraphs from
my paper. When I wrote the editor about this issue, I was astonished by
the reply: the editor could imagine how frustrating it is to be an Eastern
 1 Introduction 5

European scholar who wants international contribution and has been

rejected, but to please not bother them again. It was around that time
that I decided to dedicate all of my scholarly interest to the problem of
academic inequalities. In a very early stage of my research, I realized that
my own personal experiences as a peripheral scholar seeking international
recognition coincided to a great degree with the experiences of many
other scholars in the same position (Ake 1982; Aman 2016;
Bandyopadhyay 2017; Canagarajah 2002; Shi-xu 2009). After this dis-
covery, I wanted to understand the processes of elitism and geopolitical
exclusion—how these work in a way that is clearly visible for the oppressed
but, in most cases, totally invisible for the beneficiaries of the system.
This social blindness is detrimental not only to the oppressed social
groups, but to all of society. By “socially blind”, I mean that most mem-
bers of the dominant group—including professionals—truly think that
the members of the underprivileged groups somehow fall below the stan-
dard. Aristotle, one of the greatest Western philosophers of all time, hon-
estly thought that women are less intelligent than men and that they are
even not adults, but eternal children. In his Politics, he maintained the
idea that women should be governed like children, and the only differ-
ence between women and children is that children—of course only boys
and never girls—will grow up one day. The father of Western rationalism,
René Descartes, wrote in the preface of his Discourse on the Method that
he had written his paper in a style which would allow even women to
understand something from it, but that he hoped that more intelligent
readers would also find it valuable. And we should not forget that, even
in enlightened Western democracies, women were unable to vote until
quite recently on the basis that they do not have the appropriate intel-
lectual capacity to assess political issues. In order to be taken seriously,
women had to, and sometimes still have to, act like men: they had to
wear suits, short hair to become similar to their male peers. In the same
countries, people with a non-white ethnic background were, and in many
cases, still are regarded as less valuable than their white counterparts. For
many years, for example, it was maintained that African-Americans have
lower IQs than whites (Rushton and Jensen 2005). Accordingly, black
and other non-white individuals have had to, and sometimes they still
have to, act like their white peers in order to achieve recognition. The
6 M. Demeter

very same phenomenon can be seen among LGBTQ people. We should

not forget that homosexuality was considered a deadly sin for a long time,
and in later years it was regarded as a mental illness. It was only by the
second half of the twentieth century, in 1973, when the American
Psychological Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual, where it had been listed under the mental illness
heading of paraphilia. Accordingly, homosexuals were somewhat toler-
ated as long as they appeared to be heterosexuals or, as a minimum, did
not appear to be homosexual. As a matter of fact, in most countries,
LGBTQ people still do not have the same rights as their straight fellow
citizens, and can only be themselves behind closed doors.
In brief: women were disqualified for a long time on the basis that they
failed to meet the standards of men; people with non-white ethnic back-
grounds failed to accomplish the standards of white men: and LGBTQ
people were discriminated against on the understanding that they do not
meet heterosexual standards. The main purpose of this book is to show
that, similarly to other unjust exclusions, we should examine the serious
discrimination against Global South academics, who are usually regarded
as people who do not comply with the standards of the Global North,
and against lower class academics that do not share all of the cultural,
epistemic and academic values of their elite colleagues.
But why so many people are blind to the problems of the underrated?
The point here is that most members of the dominant part of society are
almost always convinced that the social order is fair and square, and that
if they are in a privileged position, it is due to their merit and value.
Louisa Ha, for example, the distinguished communication professor and
editor-in-chief of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, one of
the oldest and most prestigious periodicals in the field of communication
and media studies, compared the world of global academia to the Olympic
Games. She said that in both domains of global competition, we are
judged based on global standards set by our peers in the field through a
refereed process.

More touching stories cover the athletes as human beings and individuals:
how their talents were discovered by their coaches or parents, how they
struggled, overcame difficulties, achieved and maintained their success.
 1 Introduction 7

The success metrics for scholars are typically research publication citations,
research awards, fellowships, and productivity ranking. Recently, altmetrics
such as news media coverage and social media mention of research are also
gaining importance. Similarly, published works or research award glamor
only represent a small portion of the researcher’s work. Many behind-the-­
scene revisions, coordination, failed projects, prior rejections, labor in data
collection and analysis, background research that culminates many years,
and many more other things are not known to the public. In refereed jour-
nal publications, how authors survive through the review process and
improving their manuscript, how reviewers act as the anonymous coaches,
and how the editor helps authors to get the best out of the manuscript are
all a story of its own. (Ha 2016, p. 725)

However suggestive and lively this description of the field of academy

is, it is, unfortunately, not real. As I will show in the present book, espe-
cially in Chap. 3, the world of science—especially in social sciences and
the humanities—is similar to a hypothetical Olympic Games where at
least 90% of gold medals are guaranteed to Western and especially
American competitors, where athletes must wear Western clothing, or
risk being disqualified before even entering the competition, and where
they can only reach the Olympic podium if they look exactly like a
Western (preferably American) athlete.
Although the main concern of this book is, at first sight, the world of
global academia, and especially social sciences, I will argue that the moral
of the story is much broader. It is about a need for social change to ensure
that Global South competitors are equally respected on the global job
market, in the cultural industry and, of course, in the field of science. As
we will see later in this book, Global South workers are systematically
employed at levels below their competence and value in almost every seg-
ment of academic pursuit. What is more, most Global North and even
Global South colleagues usually think that this is, at least in a “What can
we do” sense, an inevitable aspect of globalization. In this present work, I
will show that the underestimation of Global South employees in the
world-system of transnational labor and especially in knowledge produc-
tion on the grounds of their origin being the Global South is no less
unfair than the underestimation of women or different minority groups
8 M. Demeter

by reason of their identity. If the global job market in general, and the
world of global academia in particular, want to claim to be merit-based,
they will have to jettison their preconceptions against Global South
authors just as they have started (but not yet finished) abandoning their
prejudices against women, ethnic groups and LGBTQ people. In this
way, global academia might provide a positive example to other fields
such as politics, economy, education and any areas of global collaboration
that are subject to international power relations.
One can say that the Global South is not a homogenous, unstructured
mass; it is rather a general term for world regions (in our case, in terms of
academic production) with different levels and trajectories of develop-
ment, even in a structural sense. For example, Latin America has been
able to set up a huge alternative and almost autonomous academic hub
which has increasing weight without essentially increasing its Global
North capital. As opposed to Latin America, China does the opposite:
instead of establishing an autonomous academic hub, it tries to acquire as
much Global North capital as it can. However, in terms of inequalities,
all Global South regions should face the serious biases in global academia.
While most edited volumes on the similar topic concentrate on different
world regions individually (Heilbron et al. 2018; Kuhn and Vessuri 2016;
Keim et al. 2014), this present monograph deals with both general fea-
tures of the Global South and with the alternative paths of different world
regions of the periphery so it can discuss different world regions in a com-
mon conceptual framework. Thus, this book is the first attempt to pro-
vide a monographic view on the issue of global inequality in the
world-system of knowledge production as it is represented in social
sciences.

 ome Remarks on Terminology

S
and Classification
In this book, I have generally followed the categorizations used in the
fields of economics, political science or international relations. However,
my approach is not always in line with the divisions of the world used by
 1 Introduction 9

other scholars. In the following lines, I will briefly introduce my catego-

rization scheme and explain why I have used it.
A comprehensive discussion on the division or conceptualization of
the world into the Global North and the Global South would require a
separate book. Thus I have decided to define my understanding of this
classification and simply present my categorization scheme. It corre-
sponds to most decolonial conceptions of the Global North/Global
South divide (Amin 2011; Kiely 2016; Parnell and Oldfield 2014; Rigg
2007), and also correlates with the economic understanding of this issue
(Amin 1997; Soederberg 2004). In short, following both dependency
theories and world-systems research, I considered “Global South” as a
generic term for the geopolitically dependent, typically colonized and
historically exploited regions of the world. It is typical to count Latin
America, Africa, the Middle East and non-Westernized or less wealthy
Asia (often called “developing Asia”) as parts of the Global South, and to
this list, I add Eastern Europe. I will argue for this categorization of
Eastern Europe as part of the Global South later in this book, here I only
refer to its dependent position in the European context both in terms of
economics and knowledge production. In contrast to the regions and
countries of the Global South, the Global North typically refers to those
regions that were—and from several points of view, still are—the exploit-
ers of the South economically and academically. Since most parts of this
book directly address how the Global North practices academic exploita-
tion and knowledge colonization, here I only present the list of world
regions that, in my understanding, are part of the Global North: the US,
the UK, Western Europe (including Scandinavia), Canada, Australia and
New Zealand, Israel, as well as the developed Asian countries like Japan,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
Maybe the most controversial issue is my categorization of the Latin
hub, usually referred to as Latin America. I have to point out at the begin-
ning of the book that, as in the case of other classifications, I have fol-
lowed the empirical results of my scientometric analyses. There are several
legitimate arguments for referring to the “language divide” between Brazil
and Hispanic America, and thus it is problematic to group them in a
common Latin hub (Ávila Reyes 2017; Bazerman 2016; Navarro et al.
2016). The “language divide” results in fewer cross-citations between
10 M. Demeter

Brazil and Hispanic America, less non-Brazilian authors in Brazilian

journals, and less scholarly collaborations between regions. Moreover, as
Navarro points out, Chile, for instance, has a state-funded policy that
pays private and public institutions direct money for each paper that gets
published in WoS-indexed journals. Therefore Chile’s WoS-indexed pub-
lications have more than doubled in a decade (Navarro 2020, in press).
Brazil, on the other hand, has its own international journal indexing sys-
tem that is not exclusively based on impact factor, and Brazilian journals
can be found in the same category as top international journals. There are
also differences in the research effort of the different countries. In par-
ticular, Brazil stands out in terms of demographics (+200 million people)
and research investment, while other countries have limited expenditures
on research and little to no indexed journals.1 However, when we take a
closer look at the academic cooperation between Brazil and Hispanic
America, we can find sufficient justification for categorizing them in a
common Latin hub. While it is true that Hispanic American countries
cooperate with each other more frequently than they do with Brazil, they
still have more joint academic endeavors with Brazil than with any other
countries (except Spain). Considering three major Brazilian journals in
communication (Informacao e Sociedade, Texto Livre and Transinformacao),
Scopus shows that Brazil is followed by Spain, Portugal, and Latin-­
American countries like Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Chile and
Argentina in both author and citation counts. Most of the authors pub-
lished in the prestigious Brazilian journal Cadernos de Pesquisa are from
Brazil, but they are followed by authors from Portugal, Argentina, Chile
and Spain. A review of citations shows a similar pattern, with most cita-
tions to this journal coming from Brazil, followed by citations from
Chile, Spain, Portugal and Colombia. Consequently, at least in terms of
scientometrics, there clearly is a Latin American hub, and, augmented by
Spain and Portugal, it forms a strong Ibero-American hub. The
Organization of Ibero-American States, including all Spanish- and
Portuguese-speaking countries, deliberately seeks to promote intergov-
ernmental cooperation among its member nations, primarily in the fields

1
I am extremely grateful to Federico Navarro for these valuable comments.
 1 Introduction 11

of education, science, technology and the arts.2 Thus, at least in sciento-

metrics, one could legitimately speak of a Latin hub that includes both
Brazil and the Hispanic American countries, and of an Ibero-American
hub that extends to Portugal and Spain as well. But, since both Portugal
and Spain are strongly connected to Western Europe in a scientometric
sense, I have decided to use the term Latin (and not Ibero-American)
hub, and to categorize Spain and Portugal as Western European countries.
Other contested aspects of categorization might be my decision to
include China as part of developing Asia, Israel as part of the center, and
transcontinental Turkey as a Middle Eastern country. Among these issues,
the most important is the case of China. One can justly argue that, in the
scientometric sense, China has not only caught up to the Western world,
but in several disciplines, has even overtaken the most successful coun-
tries such as the US or the UK. The tendency is quite clear: in a few years,
China will be the leading producer of global knowledge. However, if we
take a closer look at the data provided by Scimago, we can see that the
Chinese contribution has increased mainly in a quantitative sense, as
measured in the number of published papers. In this respect, China per-
forms extremely well even in the social sciences, since it is the third most
successful country (behind the US and the UK) in terms of the number
of published papers. But the qualitative dimension is much less impres-
sive: the citation per document index of China is relatively low, as China
ranks 59th on the global list, and only 13th on the list of countries with
the highest H-index. Nevertheless, I am sure that this is the last time that
I will count China as part of developing Asia in the context of global
knowledge production, and that within a few years, it will become one of
the most important players on the field.
From a scientometric perspective, Israel is much closer to the center
than to the periphery, and in particular, closer to the US than to any
Middle Eastern countries. Israel is the typical example of the “center
within the periphery” phenomenon: its role in global knowledge produc-
tion is similar to the most successful Western countries in aspects such as
publication output, international collaboration or the prestige of its
higher education institutions. It should also be noted that Israel is the

2
https://www.oei.es/
12 M. Demeter

OECD country with the highest share of GDP spending on research and
development (4.91% in 2018).3 Thus, it is reasonable to classify Israel as
part of the global core in knowledge production. Finally, Turkey is trans-
continental with several connections to both Europe and the Middle
East. In this case, I followed Scimago’s categorization that counts Turkey
as part of the Middle East.
Another categorization problem emerges when we want to define
social sciences. One can justifiably claim that “social sciences” is a very
inclusive umbrella term that covers a legion of disciplines, ranging from
those closer to the natural sciences (such as experimental psychology and
linguistics), to those that bear more similarity to the arts and humanities
(such as cultural studies). Since there is no general consensus on which
disciplines the category of social sciences should include, I again used
Scimago’s classification, whereby (as in most scientometric studies), the
social sciences are those that have become typically embedded in local
cultures and epistemologies such as cultural studies, development studies,
gender studies, communication, political science and similar disciplines.
Accordingly, my conception of social sciences does not include those dis-
ciplines with strong methodological and epistemological ties to natural
sciences such as formal linguistics, social psychology, psychology, eco-
nomics and so on.

The Scope of the Book

Generally, my analysis concentrates on the realm of social sciences,
because these are the disciplines where cultural, epistemic and method-
ological differences between different geopolitical locations play crucial
roles insomuch as they cause systemic biases against non-core world
regions and non-elite agents of the system of knowledge production,
including individual agents such as researchers, and collective agents like
higher education institutions. Put simply: while the development of
mathematics is almost independent of any specific culture, and natural
sciences (excluding infrastructural and financial inequalities) function in

3
https://data.oecd.org/
 1 Introduction 13

different geopolitical locations in a very similar way, social sciences func-

tion almost as many ways as there are different geopolitical locations.
These differences relate not only to the thematic foci of research actions,
but also to the applied theoretical frameworks, methods and rhetoric of
the interpretation of the results. As we will see later in this book, these
cultural, epistemic and rhetorical differences between geopolitical loca-
tions do not result in a diverse, inclusive and pluralistic global academic
field, but instead help to develop an elitist, Westernized world-systemic
structure of knowledge production. In this transnational academy, cen-
tral agents have substantive control over the whole system, and though
this control, they systemically exclude the non-elite social classes and the
geopolitical periphery from global knowledge production. These phe-
nomenon is labelled by many names, such as knowledge colonization
(Mignolo 2011), academic imperialism (Mignolo 2018) or simply
knowledge hegemony and exploitation (de Santos 2018). But the fact
that this phenomenon happens within academia has a significant impor-
tance because, unlike other societal subfields such as politics, law or eco-
nomics, the academic field presents itself as a meritocracy, with equality
and independence from any interests and values other than the strictly
academic. Consequently, it is extremely important to shed light on sys-
temic inequalities, unfairness and biases within the field, to criticize them
and to, as much as possible, fight against them. In this way, we are neither
pessimists nor optimists, but activists.
Over the last few years, I have had several opportunities to discuss the
basic ideas of the present book in front of numerous scholars at presti-
gious international events such as the annual conferences of the
Development Studies Association or the Human Development and
Capabilities Association. At almost every occasion, I had to explain a very
important pivot of the above delineated criticism, since my usual anti-­
elitist critique could be easily misunderstood or, what is worse, be consid-
ered as a personal assault against different members of the central elite.
Thus, I would like to state as a principle in this introductory chapter that
my anti-elite and, in some cases, anti-establishment criticism never means
that we have to fight against the members of the ruling elite as individu-
als, in contradistinction to the peripheral agents of the global system of
knowledge production. I explicitly think that global academia should be
14 M. Demeter

the societal field in which the global community can show that overcom-
ing current hegemon structures are just as important for the members of
the academic elite as for the oppressed peripheral actors, despite the fact
that—as is the case in all fields of society—hegemon structures work for
the elite and against the periphery. All the necessary changes should be
performed and obtained from both the center and the periphery in paral-
lel, because the global community should recognize that the academic
field, insofar as it seeks to uphold its self-definition as a meritocracy, must
abolish its center/periphery structure, make every talent visible regardless
of geopolitical position, educational trajectory and social class, and it
should do everything in its power to apprehend global processes in their
totality.
In this book I argue that, in the shadow of the material capital accu-
mulation, a different type of capital, namely academic or knowledge capi-
tal, is also continuously being accumulated and disseminated. In this
process, the world is divided into central, semi-peripheral and peripheral
knowledge domains that could be matched with both geopolitical loca-
tions and social classes. In the course of the accumulation of academic
capital, the center maintains and even strengthens its hegemony by,
mostly, the exploitation of the periphery, but the periphery also contrib-
utes to this process by the self-stigmatization of peripheral or non-core
knowledge. This self-stigmatization (Goffman 1963) incorporates the
constant downgrading of non-Western epistemic traditions, methodolo-
gies and academic cultures by emerging peripheral agents and institu-
tions as they aim to perfectly assimilate to their Western counterparts (de
la Garza 2018). As a result, self-stigmatizing peripheral agents of the
world-system of knowledge production could be, at most, very good imi-
tations of central academics. As theoretical frameworks, I will use a spe-
cific alloy of field theory (Bourdieu 1988), dependency theories (Prebisch
1959) and world-systems theory (Wallerstein 2004), and I will explain
the geopolitical and societal inequalities of the academic field through the
lenses of these perspectives. However, I should confess, already in this
introduction, that I will not faithfully follow any of these theories, but
will instead try to give a new perspective on the dynamics of global aca-
demia in the light of former approaches. In other words, I will use and
apply field theory, world-systems theory and dependency theories, rather
 1 Introduction 15

than extensively discuss or develop any of them. What is more, I present

my own simple model in Chap. 2 in which both societal stratification
and geopolitical positions could be equally represented. I should note
however that this present work does not seek to pose itself as a theoretical
novelty, but rather aims, on the one hand, to empirically prove those
critical assertions that have been already made in other research fields—
typically in decolonization studies—but without accurate empirical dem-
onstrations. On the other hand, this work is deliberately critical, as it
aims to call out the questionable aspects of current global academia
through extensive empirical analysis and thus calls not only for reflection,
but for substantial changes as well. As it is due to the systemic operation
of global academia that these questionable aspects in question relate to
fundamental parts of the world-system of knowledge production, epis-
temic and cultural racism within the field cannot be altered without sys-
temic and substantive reforms.

The Structure of the Book

The book—apart from the technical Appendix—consists of two parts
that include seven chapters. Part I includes this Introduction and two
theoretical chapters that position the empirical results discussed in Part
II. Chapter 2 introduces the main theoretical frameworks of the book,
namely the Bourdieusian frame theory and the Wallersteinian world-­
system theory. We will see how international scholars collect academic
capital or, in other words, transnational human capital by acquiring cen-
tral degrees, credentials, research grants and, ideally, more and more cen-
tral positions in the form of elite affiliations. I have constructed a
three-dimensional model in which to analyze both the social stratifica-
tion of Bourdieu and the geopolitical center/periphery relations of the
world-systems research in a common framework. Thus, the empirical
data will be discussed in the newly developed model introduced in this
chapter. I will provide a comprehensive picture of the main concepts such
as agents, field, capital, habitus, center, periphery and intellectual hege-
mony and, through our three-dimensional model, I will directly apply
them to the industry behind global knowledge production. We will see
16 M. Demeter

that the hegemon structure of global knowledge production is a very

complex one where geopolitical hegemony (in the form of the rule of
elite central institutions) is tightly interwoven with societal (class-based)
stratification since, as I will show, even those peripheral knowledge pro-
ducers who succeed in acquiring some central capital are from the upper
class of their native society. These are individuals who have access to the
highly privileged and extremely expensive “center-within-the-periphery”
institutions where they could collect global capital in their homelands.
On the other hand, we have the “periphery-within-the-center” phenom-
enon whereby those coming from a lower social class are less likely to
collect central academic capital even if they were born and live in
the center.
Chapter 3 deals with the dynamics behind the problem of inequality
by discussing economic, epistemic, moral and institutional problems,
including those directly linked to global academia. I will also discuss the
main processes that have historically led to a core/periphery structure in
international science. After a brief historical outline of the development
of the aforementioned structure, I will link my theoretical considerations
to the colonization/decolonization discussion that takes place in the field
of global knowledge production. By “economic problems”, I mean the
problems due to the uneven accumulation global academic capital which
could lead to a serious fallback in knowledge production, and I will pro-
pose calculations that show how to maintain optimal growth in produc-
tivity. The discussion on moral problems entails issues related to the
self-definition of science, i.e. that academic merit (such as talent and dili-
gence) should be the only currency in the field of science. All inequalities,
including bias based on social class and geopolitical position, run con-
trary to this principle, and thus raise serious ethical and moral issues. I
will also present the problems of the epistemic monoculture, as described
in the relevant literature: the so-called standards of global science tend to
exclude all those—typically peripheral—epistemologies that are differ-
ent, although they are not, as I will argue, inferior to the central episteme.
Finally, under the topic of institutional problems, I will discuss the
network-­based operation of the elite institutions through which they sys-
tematically overvalue each other’s academic capital, thereby creating an
 1 Introduction 17

exclusive elitism similar to Bourdieu’s notion of State Nobility, which

could be termed Global Nobility in this case.
Part II includes those chapters dealing with the Global South’s partici-
pation in the field of international science. Chapter 4 begins with the
categorization problems of the world of science. I will argue that, while
semi-peripheral and peripheral regions are different both historically and
culturally, from a world-systems perspective, they all could be considered
as peripheries of the world-system of global knowledge production. As a
case study, I will present the situation of Eastern Europe: how its Soviet
oppression led to the Sovietization of the region and how it could be
compared with imperial colonization. I will show that, as polity theory
suggests, central cultural hegemony leads to the peripheralization of all
regions other than the Anglo-American ones, and I will also argue that
this cultural imperialism goes hand in hand with the uneven distribution
of material resources such as publishing houses, journals, research grants
and international associations. After defining (and slightly modifying)
recent categorization patterns, the book discusses the dynamics behind
the uneven distribution of global academic capital by using the theoreti-
cal framework developed in Chap. 2. This chapter also introduces the
current academic capital of the Global South in different disciplines. This
in-depth analysis deals with publishers, journals, editorial boards, univer-
sities and international associations in a global context, and I will make
comparisons with Global North institutions to show the striking degree
of inequality. I will argue that the so-called international character of the
sciences cannot be proven through empirical analysis. On the contrary,
this analysis shows a clear division of the field between a few winner and
many loser countries. The situation is very much the same in the case of
the most important gatekeepers of global publishing: the national diver-
sity of editorial boards. Research shows that the national or regional com-
position of journal editorial boards significantly correlates with the
national or regional diversity of the articles published in those journals.
Thus, the more diverse an editorial board is, the more diverse the author-
ship of the journal will be. Currently, research shows that the editorial
boards of top-tier journals are often exclusively made up of central schol-
ars. In this chapter however, we will be able to differentiate between
peripheral world regions, since some are more successful in terms of
18 M. Demeter

scientific autonomy and independence. We will show that a Latin hub

has evolved with a relatively strong academic presence and, with China
and India as leading countries, an Asian hub has also started to emerge.
On the other hand, neither Eastern Europe nor Africa have been able to
find a leading country and to establish a relatively strong scientific net-
work. Also, in this chapter, I demonstrate some practices that Global
South regions have used to try to break away from the center. These
attempts include establishing regional networks and periodicals, but det-
rimental practices like publishing in fake, semi-predatory or predatory
journals might also occur. Based on the fact that different agents of the
world-system of knowledge production interact with each other to a great
extent, some peripheral regions have recognized the “rules of the global
game” and found ways to strengthen their positions in the field. As case
studies and representatives of good practice, I will present formerly
peripheral periodicals that have succeeded in reaching a leading or at least
a very prestigious position in the global field. I will show how language
policy, topical selectiveness and conscious citation universe building
could lead to global recognition without central assistance. I will also
present the effort of central agents to stop or, more frequently, to absorb
these emerging peripheral periodicals by coemption and thus making
them part of the hegemon academic center. On the other hand, I will also
show how the emerging fake publishing practices have become double-­
edged swords that work against developing world regions by making
peripheral institutions and agents more suspect in the eyes of central
gatekeepers.
Chapter 5 presents a great volume of empirical data from my previous
research on the science output of different world regions in social sciences
in general and in communication and media studies in particular. I will
show that the visibility of the global South is under 1% in both Scopus
and Web of Science, and I will also discuss the network of successful
countries in the field. I will also show comparative data and I will contrast
the uneven distribution of academic capital in different scientific disci-
plines such as the social sciences, psychology, communication, philoso-
phy, chemistry, physics and mathematics. We will see that while each
discipline has a different distribution of academic capital, the
center/periphery structure of the field of knowledge production is rather
 1 Introduction 19

similar in the case of all disciplines with the absolute hegemon position
of the US, the UK and other developed countries of Western Europe.
Moreover, we will see that academic collaborations hardly overstep the
borders of regional or, more precisely, center/peripheral networks: central
scholars tend to collaborate each other strategically, while center/periphery
collaborations are very rare and almost always hierarchical in nature. The
chapter also shows how emerging scholars from the Global South collect
academic capital and boost their careers by earning Global North degrees,
fellowships and, finally, tenured positions. On the other hand, I will also
show that elite institutions systematically exclude agents without the
appropriate reeducation, that is, without central academic capital. As a
case study, I will present the results of my former research in which we
analyzed the career paths of more than 3000 academics at elite universi-
ties and found that there was not one without central re-education. I will
also argue that this exclusion of the South and the excessive brain drain
and reeducation practices maintain Global North hegemony to a great
extent, while also causing even the most successful peripheral authors to
lose their authentic voices. As counterexamples, I will present the more
adaptive, state-funded tactics of BRICS countries that have succeeded in
raising their visibility without losing their talented people.
In this chapter I will also argue that institutional development in uni-
versity structures has an effect on the performance of individual academ-
ics. Moreover, I propose some approaches that could reduce or even
eliminate the bias against peripheral knowledge producers. Chapter 5
also sets out to study the characteristics of the network of global academia
by showing and explaining the most important connections between
publishers, universities, authors, professional organizations, as well as
some external economic and political factors. I will show the manifest
and the hidden (latent) interests of the participants, and will argue that
their largely predictable behavior serves as a barrier not only for periph-
eral participants, but also for global science itself. From an evolutional
point of view, a social field (considered as a niche) is the healthiest when
it is the most diverse. But unfortunately, in the case of global elite science,
the selection pool is almost exclusively limited to those elite central schol-
ars from elite institutions and central countries. This leads to an enor-
mous amount of wasted talent and the emergence of a sort of “academic
20 M. Demeter

freakishness”. We can already see its first signs: in leading periodicals, we

can often read mainstream, standardized, seemingly machine-produced
articles using with mainstream methods, on mainstream topics, and with
virtually no surprising or controversial results. In this chapter, the dynam-
ics of the world-system of knowledge production will be analyzed by the
(mostly economic) theories of profit maximization and capital accumula-
tion and I will show that science, as a subsystem operating in the world-­
system of global capitalism, is no exception from this rule.
Chapter 6 presents the most important considerations behind editorial
policies. I will concentrate here on the so-called invisible motives, and I
will argue that since editors have to maintain or, preferably, raise the rank
of their journals, they will encounter issues concerning the Matthew
effect, topical and thematic biases, preferential attachment or the rich get
richer effect. Based on the literature and my own empirical research, I
will argue that, in order to be published, even peripheral scholars have to
adapt to Western epistemology, central methodology and have to prefer
mainstream (i.e. central) topics as well. In accordance with the operation
of the world-system of knowledge production, the center provides theo-
ries and methodologies while the role of the periphery is, in most cases,
reduced to that of data provider. Moreover, in many cases, peripheral
phenomena have to be investigated by central scholars in order to be
published in leading periodicals—a process that could justly be called
academic exploitation. As we will see, many structural features of the
world-system of knowledge production interact against the emergence of
the periphery: journal rankings, publishing practices and standards, epis-
temic and methodological requirements, language issues and even topical
preferences work against peripheral scholars and in favor of their cen-
tral peers.
Chapter 7 sets out to study the characteristics of the network of global
academia by showing and explaining the most important connections
between publishers, universities, authors, professional organizations and
some external economic and political factors. This final chapter also poses
the question as to what should be done. As a possible answer, I will dis-
cuss the failure of centrally initiated de-Westernization processes in
knowledge production and I will propose an Easternization or peripher-
alization project which entails Global North professionalism without
 1 Introduction 21

westernizing Global South values. I will also argue that Global South
agents should learn the game that international scientists play in order to
use and subsequently modify current biased rules. As a minimum require-
ment, I propose that selection processes should be transparent and ano-
nymized in a way that only the product itself could be known by
gatekeepers like editors, reviewers, and selection committee members. As
in the case of gender and race, where, ideally, the color or the gender of
an applicant cannot play any role in the selection process, I will argue
that the same must be done regarding center/periphery positions. Thus,
it would be desirable that the current affiliation and even the place of the
degrees of a potential author or candidate remain unknown for journal
editors or selection board members until they make their decision. In this
way, peripheral knowledge producers would not be coerced to mask, hide
or even eliminate their authentic voices, episteme and academic culture.
Beyond the narrow professional readership, I intend for this book to
serve all those readers who are interested in the global processes of knowl-
edge production, or who take an interest in cultural exclusion, the down-
side of globalization, or who want to learn more about academic
inequalities in general. Consequently, I have tried to limit technical jar-
gon and details in the text. For those readers who are interested in the
empirical bases supporting the argumentation, I offer, on the one hand,
the technical Appendix in which I introduce the methodologies of source
selection, data collection, coding, calculations and the technical bases of
interpretation, and, on the other hand, frequent references to my journal
articles that cover all the necessary technical details, from sampling to
data analysis.

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 2
The Stories Are Written by the Victors:
Theoretical Considerations

There is a rather prestigious—at least, it is for Eastern European schol-

ars—conference in Central and Eastern Europe, the Central and Eastern
European Communication and Media Conference (CEECOM). We had
the 10th anniversary CEECOM conference in 2018 and the theme was,
among others, the position of communication and media studies in
Eastern Europe. As a participant myself, I was rather astonished when I
realized that amongst the four keynote speakers who had been invited to
shed light on Eastern European communication scholarship, none were
Eastern European. Distinguished scholars from an international
(American), a French, a Finnish and an English university had come to
tell us how things go in Eastern Europe. And of course, all this has been
organized by Eastern European academics, who apparently had not been
able to imagine that there was at least one Eastern European communica-
tion scholar who could say a word on Eastern European communication
studies. This self-colonialization is, in my view, a rather characteristic fea-
ture of the structure that maintains existing hegemonies of global aca-
demia. Sometimes also called self-stigmatization, it is an aspect that the
Global South will have to reckon with if it hopes to face a better future
(Goffmann 1963).

© The Author(s) 2020 25

M. Demeter, Academic Knowledge Production and the Global South,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52701-3_2
26 M. Demeter

Besides the above-mentioned inner barriers which are rarely discussed

in the literature, Global South academics also have to face the much more
frequently mentioned external barriers (Bonitz et al. 1997). Whenever
they apply for an academic job at a distinguished central institution, they
will be certain to be greeted with a message of friendly inclusiveness: it
does not matter who you are, but what you know. Your color, gender,
religion, and sexual orientation do not matter anymore: all that matters
is your product. Unfortunately, however, when we compare what these
institutions say and what they do in reality, we will find a less welcoming
attitude. As many of my former research papers clearly show (Demeter
2018b, 2019a), most departments in different subdisciplines of social
sciences employ Global North educated academics almost exclusively,
irrespective of their production in terms of scientific output, despite the
fact that scientific output is almost the only objectively measurable indi-
cator of scholarly productivity. In Chap. 5, I will show that even if Global
South educated academics are able to show much better performance
than their centrally trained peers, selection committees might prefer the
latter ones. How can this be happening in a quasi-rational domain of the
social world, namely, the so-called meritocratic field of global academia?

 Bourdieusian Perspective: Collecting

A
Academic Capital
The notion that science is a game that scientists play according to well-­
established rules has a long history in the sociology of science, but it was
Pierre Bourdieu who made a whole conceptual universe based on this
assumption (Bourdieu 1998). By participating in this game, scientists
internalize the existing rules of the field and transform them into inner
habits which then determine their professional actions. Researchers who
are the most successful in internalizing rules into habits gain more aca-
demic capital, while their less prosperous peers might suffer serious dis-
advantages. The original Bourdieusian ideas of different forms of capital
have been expansively used by later social scientists to conduct descrip-
tions of various fields of social phenomena (Bühlmann et al. 2017;
 2 The Stories Are Written by the Victors: Theoretical… 27

Gouanvic 2005; Wacquant 2018). Economic, social, cultural and sym-

bolic capital were investigated in Leung’s research (2013), while Bauder
analyzed different types of capital in academic research (2015).
Bourdieu’s notion of capital could be roughly conceived as the exten-
sion of the economic sense of the concept, since

Bourdieu’s purpose is to extend the sense of the term “capital” by employ-

ing it in a wider system of exchanges whereby assets of different kinds are
transformed and exchanged within complex networks or circuits within
and across different fields. He is attempting to relocate the narrow instance
of mercantile exchange away from economics into a wider anthropology of
cultural exchanges and valuations of which the economic is only one
(though the most fundamental) type. It is important to note, however, that
other forms of capital such as cultural and social can be seen as “transub-
stantiated” forms of economic capital. (Grenfell 2008, p. 102)

Thus, academic capital is a form of capital that can be acquired, accu-

mulated and used in the field of academia. For Bourdieu, any kind of
capital can be institutionalized, embodied or objectified. In the case of
the academic field, the institutionalized form of capital can be acquired
in the forms of certificates, degrees, diplomas, research grants, fellowships
and so on. Embodied forms of academic capital include language skills
(in a global context: typically, the knowledge of academic English) or the
skill of knowing how to write research proposals; while objectified aca-
demic capital consists of features like owning scholarly books, or, more
typically, owning professional software and having access to expensive
databases like Web of Science or Scopus.
One kind of capital has been already mentioned, since linguistic capi-
tal plays a crucial role when it comes to publication success in a field
controlled by the English language. It means that proficiency in English
is an inevitable prerequisite for an international career, and one which
can almost only be acquired through mobility, that is, a Global North
education (Horn 2017). As mobility is the most important factor when
Global South academics wish to raise their academic capital, it is expected
that more mobile authors will collect more capital. Amongst the most
obvious examples of entry-level academic capital like BA, MA or
28 M. Demeter

Ph.D. degrees obtained in the Global North, scientists are in these cases
able to collect advanced types of capital in the form of Global North
postdoctoral research experience, international grants, Global North
affiliations and, mostly, publications in leading periodicals (Hanssen
et al. 2017). Networking, collaboration, and co-authorship are also
sources of measurable academic capital in terms of both citation and
publication output (Ronda-Pupo and Katz 2018). According to
Bourdieusian field theory, different types of capital are often interchange-
able, meaning, for example, that academic capital can be converted into
economic capital. It follows that scholars with more academic capital find
better positions in the field in terms of not only symbolic, but economic
capital as well. As Zdenek (2018) puts it, one of the most important con-
ditions for international success, as represented in tenure and hiring deci-
sions, is based on high-quality publications in leading peer-reviewed
journals. However, the prerequisite for such publication is, in most cases,
proficiency in English and a Global North education. Since we can
assume that internationally recognized Global North institutions offer
much better salaries and working conditions than their less exclusive
Global South counterparts, we can see how academic capital becomes
economic capital.
Another type of symbolic capital—and one which, according to cur-
rent research, is systematically—is the elite degree. The fact that elite
degrees can be acquired almost exclusively in the Global North also
intensifies mobility from periphery to center. Many researchers have even
stated that the prestige of the affiliation of a given candidate’s Ph.D. school
may determine her chances for a tenure track position to a much greater
extent than her productivity (Baldi 1994). The function that the prestige
of the alma mater plays in the career trajectories of future academics is
extraordinarily important: Burris showed that “the prestige of the depart-
ment in which an academic received a Ph.D. consistently ranks as the
most important factor in determining the employment opportunities
available to those entering the academic labor market” (Burris 2004,
p. 239). This results in a process whereby elite institutions mutually hire
one another’s candidates while systematically excluding academics with
non-top degrees, often disregarding their merits, despite the fact that
future productivity can only be predicted on the basis of past
 2 The Stories Are Written by the Victors: Theoretical… 29

productivity, and not on the basis of the prestige of the past academic
degrees (Fumasoli et al. 2015). Thus, at the analytical level, we should
distinguish between institutional capital and human capital. While the
former refers to the reputation of an institution (like the label of being
part of the elite), the latter refers to the symbolic capital of an individual
which is incorporated or objectified in university degrees from elite uni-
versities (Gerhards et al. 2017). It is obvious then that agents can partake
in institutional capital by being educated there as they receive transna-
tional human capital—in this respect, human capital proceeds from soci-
etal or institutional capital.

The Bourdieusian Concept of the Field

Pierre Bourdieu extensively analyzed many institutions of social reality in
general and power relations in the field of academia, in particular in his
Homo Academicus (1988). His main terms, including the field, capital
and habitus, have become the focal point of wide scholarly discussion,
and his later followers have conducted heroic efforts to maintain the sig-
nificance of field theory in the description of various phenomena of social
life (Grenfell 2008). In this chapter, I am not attempting to position
myself as a post-Bourdieusian scholar, neither do I want to set myself up
as a renderer of field theory. I have to emphasize the interpretative nature
of my discussion here, since my aim is not to simply summarize or recite
the orthodox Bourdieusian theory, but to consider the basic concepts of
field theory as tools that can be used in a flexible manner. Moreover, I will
extend the Bourdieusian perspective in order to include global issues. For
this end, I will also use many considerations from Immanuel Wallerstein’s
world-system theory.
In my view, the most fundamental concept of the Bourdieusian field
theory is the concept of the field itself. Bourdieu conducted significant
efforts to emphasize the role that the field of forces plays in academic life,
and his later followers dedicated an enormous amount of research to this
topic (Bauder 2015; Bauder et al. 2017; Grenfell 2008; Gouanvic 2005;
Hadas 2016; Hilgers and Mangez 2015; Leung 2013; Recke 2011;
Rothenberger et al. 2017; Wacquant 2018; Wiedemann and Meyen
30 M. Demeter

2016). According to the original Bourdieusian idea, the field is “the space
of the relations of force between the different kinds of capital or, more
precisely, between the agents who possess a sufficient amount of one of
the different kinds of capital to be in a position to dominate the corre-
sponding field (Bourdieu 1988, p. 34).” The field of forces (the original,
le champ, is sometimes translated as a field of power or simply force field)
has the well-established institutions of the Kuhnian normal science
(Kuhn 1962). The field of forces—as the place where normal science
takes place—is conservative by nature, and its efforts aim to maintain or
even strengthen existing power relations. Prestigious institutions (in our
case: universities, publishers, research committees, and so on) use every
endeavor to entrench their top-tier position, but also keep their eyes on
the emerging but presently peripheral agents of the field. A good example
of the former is when prestigious institutions tend to hire candidates
from other elite institutions, or, as is quite common, from their own
institution even when there are better applicants in terms of science pro-
duction (see Chap. 5). With this attitude, leading academic institutions
recruit the “next generation” of agents directly from the in-­group who
will not query existing power structures. An example of monitoring the
periphery for emerging agents is when successful international (that is,
Global North) publishing houses look for prosperous journals from the
Global South, which they try to buy up in order to make them part of the
in-group. In this way, as we will see in Chap. 6, the core tries to annex
presumably successful emerging agents from the Global South in order to
forestall the possibility of peripheral agents establishing alternative core
regions or academic hubs. Actually, as we will see in Chap. 4, this does
not always succeed, as a consequence of academic countermovements in
certain parts of the Global South.
Turning back to the concept of the field of forces, one can enumerate
many social agents in the field that contribute to the maintenance of
existing hegemonies. Unsurprisingly, one of the most important social
agents is the language itself, which is, in our case, the unquestionable
authority of (mostly American) academic English (Horn 2017). Research
shows that leading periodicals, especially in the social sciences almost
exclusively publish English content (Lauf 2005). Even if they do succeed
in being published, non-English articles suffer from lower citation scores
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
But feeling as he did was not conducive, he found, to gloomy, dismal
thoughts.
Not even when they ducked down a long alleyway, which he thought
led in the general direction of Bowdler's house, did he really, deeply
feel concerned about capture. Life could not be so unfair, he decided,
as to raise him up to such heights as he had just surmounted, and
then drop him into a gloomy pit.
But of course life could, and did, do just that.

CHAPTER 10
He could not help wonder as they ran through the alleyway towards a
lighted area that might or might not lead to Bowdler's house, just how
long the shock of what he had just done would keep the irate citizens
off his trail. Pat ran at his side, her long legs easily keeping stride with
him. If she was concerned about her own safety it did not show in her
expression which was calm, and almost contemplative, if you
disregarded the little quirk of a smile that turned up the ends of her
full lips.
Despite the anxiety of his position, Comstock could not help but
compare the feeling of ebullience and general physical well-being that
surged through him, with the sadness and the feeling of despondency
that he had always experienced after his monthly visits to the b.....l.
If he had not been so busy running and praying that they could avoid
the R.A.'s, he would like to have sat down and tried to reason out just
what was the underlying reason for this change in his attitude towards
sex, and its aftermath.
The pounding of their feet was the only sound in the silent night.
Beside them the grey brick walls that lined the alley through which
they ran were completely featureless. No windows or doors broke the
long straight lines that reared up around them.
Pat paused and said, "Why are we running? It's quite clear that we ..."
she giggled, "scared everyone away with our outrageous conduct."
The fact that she was able to muster up a smile under these dire
circumstances made a warm feeling well up in Comstock's chest. He
feebly returned the smile, and then putting out his arms took her in
them. He kissed her chastely on the lips and found that even this
modest gesture made his temples pound.
Enfolding her and drawing her closer to him, he leaned his back
against the nearest wall and whispered into her ear some of the
phrases he had stored up from his reading which he had meant to
say to Grundy's girl, Helen.
Their bodies were glued so tightly together that when the sound
came, their start of surprise was completely mutual. "Ssssst." It
sibilated. And then again, "Sssst!"
Thunderstruck, their arms still pressing around each other, Pat and
Comstock looked around them. There was nothing to see. Nothing at
all.
Then the sound became words, "Sssst, the R.A.'s after you?"
"Uh huh." Comstock managed to answer.
"Count three and then press against the fifth block from the ground."
Feeling that they had absolutely nothing to lose, Comstock obeyed
the whispered command.
The fifth block up looked exactly like all the others. But when
Comstock pushed at it, an irregular segment suddenly swung
inwards. Low light was visible for a moment through the opening.
Then it vanished and Comstock, holding Pat by the hand as though to
give her reassurance, but really so that he could draw strength from
her nearness, stepped through the dark aperture.

At that particular moment, back at Bowdler's house, Grundy, Helen

and the owner of the robot house were seated in the library. Bowdler
had his hand outstretched to a lever that projected from behind some
books. His eyes were glued to a clock. He said, "Five seconds ... four
... three ..." then he shook his heavy head, and threw the lever back
in its slot. "I'm afraid we'll have to give them up. It's past midnight.
We'll try again at noon tomorrow."
"Don't you dare leave the force field open for a few moments more?"
Grundy pleaded.
Shaking his leonine head, Bowdler pushed some books into place so
that the lever was hidden from sight. "I would if I could, Grundy. But
they must take their chances now."
"Even if Comstock has found that poor girl," Helen said, "what can
they do out in the night?"
"Twelve more hours before they can make another attempt to reach
safety here." Grundy shook his head. "I can't imagine where they can
hide from the omnipresent R.A.'s."
"If only Comstock knew a little more," Helen said, "but we didn't dare
try to open his eyes till you were here and it could be done under your
aegis."
"The poor innocent," Bowdler said, "you were right to wait for me, but
I wish things had worked out differently. Pat doesn't know much more
about reality than Comstock." He sighed and then rested his big head
on the myriad chins that formed a collar of flesh around his neck.
"What," Grundy asked, "will the R.A.'s do if they capture them?"
"Stun them to death, I'm afraid," Bowdler said.
"No," Helen said hopelessly, "no, they wouldn't...."
But the R.A.'s would, all three of them knew that. Then they just sat
and waited, Bowdler staring sightlessly off into a future that only he
could envisage, Helen and Grundy holding onto each other
desperately in just the same fashion that Pat and Comstock were
clinging to each other, as they followed someone or something
through a pitch black room that seemed to stretch out forever.
The peculiar door had swung to behind them making all seeing
impossible. Comstock held his right arm around Pat's waist and held
his left hand before him wishing that his finger tips could see.
The unknown voice that they had heard only once said, "Just a
couple of seconds more, my buckos, and we'll be able to dispense
with this blasted Stygian darkness."
A fumbling sound, a click, and then white light poured down in an iris-
closing flood.
Blinking, Comstock and Pat looked around them. The room through
which they had been moving sightlessly was big but not as big as
their imaginations had made it. The clutter dwarfed the dimensions in
any event. Every available foot of space ahead of them was piled
high with a tangle of household objects that ranged from chairs and
tables to rugs and bed linen.
Their mysterious host was facing them and as their eyes became
accustomed to the light they saw a man of more than average height,
lean as a willow branch, a piratical smile creasing his lantern jawed
face, as he opened his arms in an all embracing gesture and said,
"Welcome to the Haven."
Danger had made Comstock super-cautious, otherwise he might
have ruined everything right then and there; for the first thought that
occurred to him was that by some stroke of incalculable luck they had
stumbled onto still another rebel. But remembering that Bowdler had
said that there were only four fellow fighters altogether made
Comstock wait for a lead. He said, "Thanks. You've probably saved
our lives."
Hands on his narrow hips, the stranger frankly eyed Pat
appreciatively. A low whistle preceded his next words, "Put twenty
years on you, honey child, and you're going to be a real live doll!"
If this man liked old women, Comstock reasoned, he could not be a
fellow rebel. But that made his conduct even more remarkable. Go
slow, very slowly and carefully, Comstock brooded, as Pat smilingly
asked, "May we know who you are?"
With vast mock-modesty, the man bowed low, and said, "I am known
by a variety of names, none of them my own. I am perhaps best
known as the Picaroon." Then he waited for them to express surprise
and pleasure.
They just looked at him. Slightly crestfallen he rose from his bowing
position, and said, almost anxiously, "You've heard of me? The
Picaroon? I steal from the poor and give to the rich?"
Comstock turned his head and looked inquiringly at Pat. She was as
puzzled as he.
Considerably crestfallen the man said, "The greatest outlaw in all
New Australia? The man the R.A.'s would give their left arms to
capture?" A frown crossed his face, then he said as though talking to
himself, "The dirty rats! They were supposed to write me up, they
promised they would, when I got sick and had to become a thief."
Whirling around on tip toe like a dancer, he pointed at the
accumulation of odds and ends that crowded the room. "Then what
have I been working so hard for? Why have I worked my fingers to
the bone stealing ... stealing, out every night when I should be
asleep, burglarizing every innocent house I come to? Why, I ask you,
why? It's enough to make a man become a cynic, that's what it is!"
Slumping into a chair that was already overcrowded with various
objects, he put his head in his hands. A terrifying thought seemed to
occur to him. He looked up at them. "If you don't even know who I
am, if they aren't even writing up my criminal exploits, what did I go to
all the trouble of preparing this Haven for? If they're not chasing me, if
there is no danger, how can my cure work?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Comstock said since the man seemed to want
some kind of an answer. All the while the thief had been talking,
Comstock had been racking his weary brain trying to recollect what
illness crime was a cure for. He couldn't remember.
A hopeful look came over the man's face and he leaped up from his
seat. A long forefinger jutted out at Comstock. The man said, "I've got
it. You're lying to me! You're undercover workers for the R.A. You're
spies come to root me out! Luckily I have taken precautions against
that very thing. The Picaroon can't be caught napping! No indeed!"
Whirling around the man who called himself the Picaroon suddenly
swooped towards a pile of metallic looking objects whose identity
Comstock had not yet been able to determine.
The thing he grabbed was about three feet long, made of some
shining metal, was about an inch in diameter and came to a point.
The handle, if that was what it was, glittered as he inserted his hand
in the metallic basketwork and twirled the point of the object
dangerously near Comstock's nose. Comstock felt his nostrils twitch
as the object stirred up a breeze as it swirled past him.
The lean man said, "I knew this old sword would come in handy some
day. No one can outwit the Picaroon." He laughed and his voice was
pitched at what Comstock considered an almost hysterical note.
The point of what the Picaroon had called a sword swung back and
forth in front of Pat and Comstock. With his other hand he grabbed a
long loop of narrow cloth and threw it to Pat. "Tie up your fellow spy
and then I'll take care of you...."
Comstock said, "Do as he tells you, Pat, darling. Do it instantly." His
voice quavered for he had suddenly recollected what sickness it was
that thieving cured.
Unexpectedly docile, Pat did as she was directed. She tied
Comstock's hands behind his back, not too tightly, however,
Comstock was pleased to notice, and then turning, faced their captor.
She asked, "What now, noble Picaroon?"
"Good girl," Comstock thought, "She's realized that only madmen are
forced to become anti-social creatures."
Humming to himself the Picaroon whirled the point of the "sword"
under Comstock's chin and said to Pat, "If only you were a little older,
child, you and I could make such beautiful music together.... But then
there's no reason why I can't keep you here in the Haven till you age
properly, now is there?"
"No," Pat agreed hastily, "none at all."

The lunatic whistled cheerily to himself as he cleared a free space on

a couch and forced Pat to lie down on it. Then he tied her ankles with
a silk scarf, and her wrists with a plastic substance that was known to
have a tensile strength equal to that of the metal that this culture used
for the framework of their buildings.
Donning a broad brimmed hat, and throwing a cape-like cloth around
his wide shoulders, the Picaroon bowed deeply to Pat. Walking to one
wall, he pressed his fingers against a projecting button and said, "'Tis
not long past midnight ... there's a bad night's work still to be done.
Tonight, the Picaroon strikes again!"

He was gone. They were alone. Comstock looked helplessly at Pat.

She tried to manufacture a smile but it was no great shakes.
"If," Comstock said, "I can get this thing off my wrists, perhaps we can
be out of here before that insane creature returns."
"Escape from this retreat directly into the Grandfather's Right Arms?"
Pat asked gently.
Comstock stopped struggling with his bonds for a moment as he
considered what she had said. "If we can fend off this 'Picaroon' until
about eleven-thirty tomorrow then we can make a dash for Bowdler's
house.
"I think that's our only chance, and a slim one it is."
Almost twelve hours ahead of them, at the mercy of a madman,
before they could dare run the daylight gauntlet of the outdoors,
under the menace of the R.A.'s. Comstock shuddered. The risk was
tremendous, yet what else was there that they could do? He couldn't
bear the thought of staying here in the Picaroon's Haven right around
the clock, he didn't think he could stand twenty-four hours more of the
nerve racking strain he was undergoing, even though that might be a
more intelligent plan to attack.
Roughly twelve hours more, one way, and a full twenty-four the
other....
Pat said, when she saw his brow furrowed with painful thought,
"Now's the time to think of my name."
"Huh?" he said, not very intelligently.
"Patience and Fortitude, remember?"
He had the patience, the only question was whether or not he had the
fortitude to put up with the Picaroon's mad fantasies.
At length the secret door opened and the man he was brooding about
entered, bowed down with an even more useless collection of stolen
objects than the ones which already burdened the room.
Striking an attitude, the Picaroon dropped the load he was carrying
and roared, "Once more has the Picaroon dared the armed forces
and the majesty of The Grandfather's law; once more his nimble
fingers have plucked from the very heart of our solid citizenry those
stolen treasures which will emblazon his name in the criminal hall of
fame."
He bowed.
Pat said under her breath, "Patience and Fortitude...."
Then the Picaroon darted suddenly towards Comstock, his lean
fingers outstretched. He said, "And you, you poisonous emissary of
the forces of law and order, you, the Picaroon will punish in fitting
style!"
Comstock held his breath as he waited to see what new vagary had
further addled the brain of their insane captor.

CHAPTER 11
Before the Picaroon's fingers had quite tightened around Comstock's
throat, Pat called out, "Perhaps there is some good reason why your
exploits have not been emblazoned for all to read!"
The strong fingers slowly opened and the madman turned towards
Pat.
Taking the cue, Comstock said hurriedly, "Yes, maybe your crimes
have not been particularly spectacular!" Some place in Bowdler's
huge library Comstock had run across a book devoted to the exploits
of a super criminal. Rummaging through his memory, Comstock said,
"I've got it! I know just the thing that the Picaroon can do that will
insure his infamy becoming noticed."
As Pat began to speak, the Picaroon's head swivelled back and forth
between her and Comstock. His steel grey eyes were no longer
menacing, Comstock was pleased to note.
"How about," Pat suggested, "how about stealing...."
"One of the R.A.'s cars," Comstock interjected.
"Just what I was going to say. And then with the aid of the car, he
can...."
"Go to the fountainhead, beard The Grandfather in his retreat."
"And make sure that his most fantastic and fabulous crime will
become known to every living creature in our world by...."
"Snipping off The Grandfather's beard!" Comstock finished. Then he
waited, his teeth pressed together on his bottom lip.
"But," the Picaroon said, in a rather bemused fashion, "that would be
blasphemy."
"But think of the effrontery of it!" Pat said, leaning forward hopefully,
paying no attention to the bonds that held her.
"Think of the shock of such an action! Every law-abiding citizen would
rise up in wrath. Then the hue and cry would be such that no longer
would the Picaroon work long hard hours through the night without
ever getting the fame which is his due." Comstock could hardly
believe that even this lunatic would fall for what they were suggesting.
"What a colossal feat ..." the Picaroon said, almost to himself, "Why
didn't I think of it?"
His long legs carried him around the room, as unthinkingly, he strode
up and down over the various bundles that were strewn around the
floor.
A thought struck the man who called himself the Picaroon. "Where
could we steal an R.A.'s car?"
This, of course, was the crux of Comstock's plan. Looking as
unconcerned as he could, Comstock said, "Why, it just happens that
Pat and I know where there is an abandoned car."
"An abandoned car?" The Picaroon grinned delightedly, snapped his
fingers and said, "Then come, the night is young and there is dirty
work to be done!" Running to Pat's side he released her. She rose,
rubbed her fingers to restore the circulation and then untied
Comstock.
Comstock eyed her torn dress, the involuntary deshabille that
revealed more of her firm young b.....s than he thought any other man
in the world should be in a position to observe and said to the
Picaroon, "Remember, this is a most dangerous adventure on which
we are about to embark. We are wanted as badly by the R.A.'s as
you will be once you have snipped off The Grandfather's beard! We'd
best wear some disguise."
"Then," the Picaroon said, "You two are really not police spies at all,
are you?"
"Wait and see what the R.A.'s do to us if they catch us," Pat said
grimly, while she rooted through a rag bag of old clothes trying to find
some sort of garment with which to clothe herself.
"How exciting," the Picaroon said, slapping his hands together in
delight, "and to think I was just about to crown my criminal career by
murdering this man."
Comstock tried not to think about how close his demise had been and
watched fascinatedly while Pat dropped her torn dress to the floor
and donned a shapeless gown.
But when he saw the Picaroon was busy searching for male clothes
he turned away from the delectable sight of Pat's n..e body and took
the clothes that the Picaroon gave him. A floppy hat had a big enough
brim so that in the dark Comstock's face would be hidden. A tight pair
of trousers and a too big jacket of a different color than the things he
had been wearing would have to suffice as a disguise. All Comstock
could do really, was hope and pray that they would be able to get,
with the Picaroon's aid, near enough to Bowdler's house so that while
the Picaroon was busy trying to understand the mechanics of the
abandoned car, he and Pat could make a run for it through the force
field at the proper time.

The trip through the darkened city was a revelation to both Pat and
Comstock. In Comstock's earlier, law-abiding incarnation, there had
never been a night that found him in bed later than the curfew at ten.
To find that the streets were completely deserted at two, or three
o'clock in the morning came as no surprise, since he knew that all
lawful souls would, of course, be asleep at that time.
But he had not been an alcoholic for a long enough period to find out
that the bars stayed open long after midnight. The only people that
there was the slightest chance of trouble with, were the roisterers
who staggered out of the saloons from time to time, and here the
danger was slight, for as soon as an inebriate hove into view the
Picaroon would wink mightily, link arms with Pat on one side and with
Comstock on the other and the trio would mimic drunkenness and
sing bawdy songs till the real drunks were gone.
"What," Comstock asked, "are the chances of bumping into an R.A.?"
"Aha!" The Picaroon placed his long forefinger next to his nose. "You
are attempting to tear aside the veil that hides the Picaroon's
methods!"
"Fiddle faddle," Pat said nastily, "answer him!"
Coming to a halt on a silent street corner under a lamp post that cast
a spotlight down around his piratical figure, the Picaroon said, "At
night, after curfew, when all law-abiding citizens sleep...." He lowered
his voice to a shadow of a whisper forcing Pat and Comstock to place
their ears near his mouth, "you realize, don't you, both of you, that I
am giving away my most cherished secret, the modus operandi that
allows me to operate and so flout the law?"
They nodded.
"Then let it be known, but just to us, that I have found when all the
other law-abiding citizens sleep, why, so do the R.A.'s."
Twirling in a mad pirouette, the Picaroon threw back his head and
laughed. "From curfew to dawn, there is no law!"
Clapping a hand over the Picaroon's mouth, Comstock snapped,
"Shut up! You'll rouse the dead with all that noise!"
A little sobered the Picaroon said, "Now you have my most valued
secret, see that you guard it with your lives!" Putting his finger to his
lips he added, "Hisssst...."
Pat asked, "What is it?"
"Nothing," the Picaroon said, "I just like to say hisssst...."
Shrugging behind the Picaroon's back, Comstock gestured to Pat to
pay no mind to their mad guide. Aloud, he asked, "Do you know your
way to 14 Anthony Comstock Road?"
"I know all the ways," the Picaroon said, and again taking the lead,
walked with exaggerated steps, on tip toe, as though fearing to wake
the sleeping world.
It was a long trip on foot and dawn was breaking as they came in
sight of some landmarks that Comstock remembered. If his mental
picture of the terrain was correct, the car in which Grundy, Helen and
he had made their escape from the Fathers should be downhill from
where he and Pat and the Picaroon were now standing.
He conveyed this information to the others and this time he took the
lead with Pat behind him and the Picaroon still walking on tip toe
bringing up the rear.
As they went downhill Comstock could see his goal. Bowdler's house
lay still and quiet, the refuge for which he yearned. But it might just as
well have been on the other side of his world for all the good it was as
long as the force field surrounded it.
Waiting till the Picaroon's attention was on the car in the distance,
Comstock pointed at the house and whispered to Pat, "That's it."
She nodded.
Then they reached the car and the Picaroon's almost idiot glee
reached its apogee as he poked at the thing under the hood that
made the "car" move.
Comstock didn't have the vaguest idea of whether or not the car
could run. When he and Grundy and Helen had abandoned it, it had
simply gone careening downhill and finally stopped. Why it stopped,
or whether it would ever go again was an impenetrable question to
Comstock.
But he didn't allow his lack of knowledge to stand in his way.
Becoming dictatorial he told the Picaroon to stop fooling about with
the mechanism and to watch and try to learn how to make the car go.
Then with the Picaroon standing at attention, Comstock got into the
car, and went through the complex series of actions which in
Grundy's case had served to animate the vehicle.
There was a muttering rumble from the "car" and it surged internally.
However the rock which had halted its forward progress in the first
place, still served to prevent it from proceeding.

The Picaroon snapped into action, and going to the rear of the "car"
he pushed as the wheels of the vehicle began to spin to no avail at
all.
At this point, Comstock, anxious to stall things as long as he could,
since there was no chance of entering Bowdler's house till the sun
was overhead, tried to turn off the motor. Instead he threw the motor
into reverse and the car instantly backed up, carrying the Picaroon
along with it.
He dangled from the rear of the car trying to muscle himself up out of
the danger of the wheels while he yelled at the top of his lungs for
Comstock to stop whatever he was doing.
Pat sat on the side of the road being of no help to Comstock at all,
since she was busy being convulsed by giggles. The sight of the
long-legged madman, his no longer jaunty cape entangled in his
thrashing limbs, while Comstock wildly snapped things on and off on
the control board, and the unguided car veered and yawed as it ran
backwards up the steep hill was a little more than she could stand.
When the car had backed almost to the crest of the hill, Comstock
found the key which turned the ignition on and off and managed to
bring the "car" to a halt.
The Picaroon was in a towering fury. "Poltroon!" he roared at
Comstock who was red-faced with embarrassment and anxiety. "How
dare you treat a criminal figure of my stature in a manner more
befitting some low comedy person like you?"
Dropping from the rear of the "car" the Picaroon raced around
towards the driving wheel where Comstock sat helplessly trying to
deduce what had gone wrong with his method of driving the "car".
The Picaroon's right hand darted out of sight under his cape and
when it came back into view, Comstock was horrified to see that a
steel blade perhaps ten inches long had become integral to the
maniac's right hand.
"Blood!" the Picaroon stated almost calmly, "blood is the only thing
that will erase this stain that you have placed on my criminal
escutcheon."
With that he darted the sharp point of the knife straight at what would
have been Comstock's Adam's apple, had not a beginning double
chin covered it with fat.
There is no doubt that Comstock would have died at the wheel of the
car, with a slit throat had not Pat, seeing the direction that the
madman's mind was taking, picked up a rock and smashed it down
on the Picaroon's head just in the only too well known nick of time.
Breath whooshed out of Comstock's lungs as he saw the knife blade
falter, and then saw the Picaroon's head come careening down.
Wide-eyed he watched as the man's unconscious body tumbled to
the ground.
As soon as the Picaroon landed, Pat was at his side and her questing
hand first took the knife from his flaccid grip and then she examined
the rest of the arsenal that hung from the man's belt hidden till now by
the all-encompassing cloth of his ridiculous cape.
The plethora of weapons clinked and clanked as she placed them to
one side. She said, "When you get your breath, come and take some
of these for yourself, dear."

Comstock found that if he didn't pay too much attention to the way his
knees wobbled that he could navigate. Getting out of the car was
hardest. Once he was on firm ground again he found that the various
alarums and excursions through which he had lived had served to, if
not make him callous to danger, at least make him bounce back a
little faster than he had at the beginning of his departure from his
normal way of life.
Holding his right forefinger on his left pulse for a moment he
wondered why his poor weak heart had not long ago surrendered
beneath the various assaults that had been made on it. But when he
found that his pulse seemed to be practically normal he forgot about
his heart until kneeling down next to Pat he smelled the fragrance of
her hair. This time he did not have to take his pulse. He could feel his
heart pounding.
She looked sideways at him and smiled gently. They were both
kneeling next to the prostrate Picaroon. Their mouths were on a level.
This made their kissing almost automatic.
The kiss might have lasted even longer than it did had not the
Picaroon stirred. Pat broke away from Comstock's embrace and said,
"We'd best tie him up so that we don't have any more trouble with
him."
"By all means," Comstock said muzzily, his mind still concerned with
the nearness of her.
It was only when she rose and went to the car looking for something
with which to bind their captive that Comstock was able to think,
shake his head and force his addled brain into action again.
Then using the cape as a blanket, Comstock swathed the madman in
its folds. Next, when Pat returned with some rope they wound it
around and around the man till he was completely bound.
Then, and only then, did Comstock turn and look across the distance
that separated them from Bowdler's house and safety. The sun was
well up now, which was good in that it shortened their waiting time,
but was bad since it meant that the R.A.'s would be out on patrol in
full force.
Pat, standing at his side, voiced his thoughts when she said, "Isn't
there some way that we could signal to your friends so that we need
not wait out here till noon?"
"The big danger to be avoided is that the R.A.'s may see us and so
suspect the house."
Below them, the Picaroon rolled his head back and forth angrily. This
was the only part of him that he could move. He said, "So you were
spies!" He spat. "I should have known. Always should the master
criminal work alone. All the text books I have read make that point. It
serves me right for not being a lone mink ... or wolf or whatever the
earth word is."
Comstock paid no attention to his grumbling as he tried to assay the
situation. They could not endanger the safety of the house by just
walking into view of one of the windows and waving to capture the
attention of Grundy or Helen.
If an R.A. were to see that...
Since that was impossible, what were their chances of being
unobserved for ... looking up at the sun he tried to estimate how long
it would be before noon. Perhaps two hours yet.
Putting his arm around Pat's waist he said, "Let's get as close to the
force field as we can so that when it is lifted we can just make a dash
for the house."
"And take a chance of being seen by an R.A.?"
That was right. When Bowdler told him to come back to the house at
noon or midnight, he had had no way of knowing just how badly the
R.A.'s would be wanting to get hold of Pat and Comstock. It hardly
seemed possible to Comstock that so little time had passed since he
had left the house and safety the day before to go hunting for an
unknown girl.
He gulped as he realized what the tenor of his thinking meant. He
said plaintively, "You mean we'll have to wait till midnight before we
dare go to the house?"
She nodded.
Then, as one person they turned and looked down at the Picaroon. It
would be unfair to keep the poor lunatic tied up the way he was for at
least fourteen more hours...
The Picaroon was mumbling to himself, "You are who you are, if you
think you are..."
Blinking thoughtfully, Comstock turned to Pat and said, "You know,
that's a very interesting question. I'd like to think about it for a while."
"While you're thinking about it, darling, devote a little of your brain
power to figuring out where we're going to get food and water to last
us till midnight..."
The madman's words pounded at Comstock's brain washing away
the reality of what the girl had said. "But how do you know you are?"
That was a very interesting question.
Still squatting on his heels, Comstock looked unseeingly off into the
distance and wondered what in the name of The Grandfather the
answer to the lunatic's question could be.
He was something or someone called Comstock, he was sure of that.
But how could he know he was Comstock, for sure, that is?
He was so engrossed that he did not even hear the Picaroon's mad
giggle as the man said to Pat, "See ... see what my little question did
to him? That's what happened to the first four doctors who examined
me!" He laughed again. "That was when the Fathers decided that I
was a madman and that my only cure was to become a criminal."
Worry made itself visible on Pat's face as she turned from looking at
Comstock who was completely withdrawn inside himself. She looked
down at their captive and asked, "Who were you before you became
the Picaroon?"
The harsh piratical face lost its Harlequinesque self-derision as the
man said, "I was the last philosopher."

CHAPTER 12

There was something so infinitely sad in the man's words that Pat
was emotionally moved. Not knowing what a philosopher might be did
not prevent her from feeling sorry that the bound man had been the
last of whatever it was that he had been.
Comstock never knew about the conversation that the quondam
Picaroon had with Pat, for all the while that the girl and the bound
man talked, Comstock was in a little world of his own trying to chase
down the reality of his own existence.
Sitting on the ground next to the man who called himself the Picaroon
and the last philosopher, Pat found herself involved in a discussion of
what the man spoke of as the eternal verities.
The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, noon came and went while
Comstock went deeper and deeper into himself searching for the
answer that does not exist.
When he had not moved for many hours, Pat tore herself away from
what she was being told and asked, "What can I do for him?"
For the first time in many hours the philosopher gave place to the
Picaroon and the madman, laughing gleefully as he said, "All you
need do is find the answer for which he is questing. That will bring
him out of the grey world into which the question has driven him."
Looking at Comstock, Pat felt fear like a live thing. There was no
intelligence on his soft face. None at all. His eyes were unfocussed,
his breathing very slow. His arms were hooked around his knees
which were drawn up towards his chest. He had fallen over on his
side.
Luckily Pat had no idea of what the foetal position looks like or she
would have been even more frightened than she was.
Pat asked hesitantly, "Will you tell me the answer so that I can help
him come back?"
Then the madman threw his lean face back and howled.
Wringing her hands, Pat wondered what had come over the man who
such a short time before had told her wonderful things of which she
had never dreamed.
When he was strangling with his own mirth, the man gasped, "My
dear, I would gladly give the answer ... that's what I devoted all my life
to searching for ... but the humor of it all is that there is no answer."
Then another paroxysm of laughter swept through him.
Deep down inside Comstock's brain in the never-never land to which
the last philosopher's question had driven him, Comstock was dully
aware that his body was being stroked. It felt nice and he made an
animal sound deep in his throat. But the action did not serve to revive
him any more than Pat's anxious voice which was shouting in his
unhearing ears.
He never heard her say, "Darling, you must come back! The R.A.'s
are coming."
Comstock never knew when a squad of R.A.'s surrounded the car,
and by means of a frightening array of stun-guns forced Pat to help
them carry first the tied-up lunatic and then the unresisting body of
the man she loved into the car in which they had driven onto the
scene.

Inside Bowdler's house Grundy, Helen and the owner of the robot
house sighed as midnight came and went. Bowdler voiced all their
feelings when he said, "I am afraid we must give them up for lost. We
have waited through three periods. There has been no sign of them.
None at all."