A major hindrance for developing a fair and inclusive exchange of knowledge among global communities remains the practices and conventions of academic publishing. Scholars from the Global South and minoritized scholars in the Global North lack access to scholarly resources, publishing networks, and suitable mentors. The coordinator of this Consortium, Canagarajah, experienced these limitations first hand when he started his academic career in Sri Lanka. Working now in the US, Canagarajah receives requests for help from scholars in many different South Asian, East African, and South American countries who seek assistance in revising their manuscripts, finding relevant publications that they are unable to obtain in their local universities, interpreting the decisions of editors and reviewers, and illuminating the conventions of publishing practices. After doing such voluntary service for many years, Canagarajah has established this Consortium to expand this work to more scholars who are off-networked, with the help of other senior scholars who have published successfully and understand academic publishing conventions.  

Decolonizing and democratizing academic publishing and epistemologies is an expansive and protracted process of dismantling many unequal structures in the global academic enterprise. This is not limited to the activity of diversifying journal publications alone. This Consortium is open to providing advice and support on diverse other concerns that intersect with publishing and knowledge—such as starting open access journals; sponsoring new journals in the Global South to disseminate resistant knowledge; publishing on diverse other genres and media beyond journal articles; and developing new scholarly networks to sponsor the research and publications of minoritized scholars.  

However, the Consortium will focus on mentoring off-networked scholars on their manuscripts for journal articles as a first step in this long decolonizing process. Making spaces in the existing journals for a more diverse range of scholars and their studies from less visible contexts is an important first step in changing the academic conversation. Hearing new voices from marginalized communities can create a readiness to explore alternate publishing venues and practices for decolonizing knowledge and developing more inclusive epistemological structures going forward.