Mirek Dymitrow1
Valentin Mihaylov2
Rene Brauer1
1 Department of Cultural Science, Linnaeus University, Växjö. Sweden
2 Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach, Sosnowiec, Poland
DOI:
UDC: [911.3:001.101]:316.344.3
Published: August 2026
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Keywords: epistemic injustice; geo-epistemics; higher education; higher education; university
Abstract:
Global knowledge continues to flow along unequal and often invisible hierarchies. The concept of epistemic injustice highlights the ethical and moral consequences of such asymmetries, showing how certain groups’ knowledge is undervalued, with implications for careers, wellbeing, and social recognition. This paper examines how knowledge is constructed, contested, and maintained across universities, research institutes, cultures, languages, and geopolitical contexts. Extending beyond postcolonial frameworks, we explore a variety of contexts in which epistemic marginalization shapes knowledge and authority. Adopting a geo-epistemic perspective, we show how entrenched biases influence what counts as legitimate knowledge and who gets to decide, while also revealing constraints faced by scholars across diverse settings. This approach supports rethinking expertise, confronting exclusionary norms, and cultivating a more inclusive, dialogical, and globally aware academic practice.
References:
Mannheim, K. (2013). Ideology and utopia. Routledge.
Merton, R. K. (1973). The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press.
Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Duke University Press.
Livingstone, D. N. (2019). Putting science in its place: Geographies of scientific knowledge. University of Chicago Press.
Gregory, D. (1978). Ideology, science and human geography. London: Hutchinson.
de Sousa Santos, B. (2016). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. London and New York: Routledge.
Davies, S. R. (2020). Epistemic living spaces, international mobility, and local variation in scientific practice. Minerva, 58(1), 97–114.
Wood, D. A. (2020). Epistemic decolonization: A critical investigation into the anticolonial politics of knowledge. Cham: Springer.
Wittgenstein, L., Anscombe, G. E. M., von Wright, G. H., Paul, D., & Anscombe, G. E. M. (1969). On certainty (Vol. 174). Oxford: Blackwell.
Mignolo, W. (2009). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and de-colonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8), 1–23.
Dymitrow, M., & Brauer, R. (2018). Meaningful yet useless? Factors behind the retention of questionable concepts in human geography. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 100(3), 195–219.
Readings, B. (1996). The university in ruins. Harvard University Press.
Ginsberg, B. (2011). The fall of the faculty. Oxford University Press.
Fleming, P. (2021). Dark academia: How universities die. Pluto Books.
Van Norden, B. W. (2017). Taking back philosophy: A multicultural manifesto. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mihaylov, V., & Dymitrow, M. (2026). Epistemic over-concentration in a world of growing diversity: Can equitable dialogue(s) counteract the current state of affairs? In V. Mihaylov & M. Dymitrow (Eds.), Asymmetrical epistemic order(s): State of affairs, contestations, alternatives. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Olsson, G. (1991). Lines of power – Limits of language. University of Minnesota Press.
MacKenzie, D. (2007). The material production of virtuality: Innovation, cultural geography and facticity in derivatives markets. Economy and Society, 36(3), 355–376.
Bandola-Gill, J., & Smith, K. E. (2022). Governing by narratives: REF impact case studies and restrictive storytelling in performance measurement. Studies in Higher Education, 47(9), 1857–1871.
Kant, I. ([1794] 2018). The conflict of the philosophy faculty with the theology faculty. In M. Gregor (Trans.), The idea of the university: A reader (Vol. 1, pp. 3–18).
Gasset, J. O. ([1930] 2014). Mission of the university. Routledge.
Griffiths, A. P. ([1965] 2010). A deduction of universities. In Philosophical analysis and education (pp. 127–140). Routledge.
Derrida, J. (2001). The future of the profession or the university without condition (thanks to the “Humanities,” what could take place tomorrow). In Jacques Derrida and the humanities: A critical reader (pp. 24–57).
Oakeshott, M. (2003). The idea of a university. Academic Questions, Winter 2003–04.
Barnett, R. (2005). Recapturing the universal in the university. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 37(6), 785–797.
Ingold, T. (2020). On building a university for the common good. Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, 2(1), 45–68.
Brauer, R, & Dymitrow, M. (2026). Universities, impact and epistemic injustice: Unveiling the hidden geographies of research evaluation systems. In V. Mihaylov & M. Dymitrow (Eds.), Asymmetrical epistemic order(s): State of affairs, contestations, alternatives. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Alpaydın, U. A. R., & Fitjar, R. D. (2021). Proximity across the distant worlds of university–industry collaborations. Papers in Regional Science, 100(3), 689–712.
Kotze, S., & Dymitrow, M. (2022). North–South research collaborations: An empirical evaluation against principles of transboundary research. Development Policy Review, 40(2), e12555.
Dymitrow, M., & Brauer, R. (2024). Death by a thousand cuts: A microsociology of how university administration stifles solidarity. Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, 6(2), 201–222.
Hägerstrand, T., Ellegård, K., Svedin, U., & Lenntorp, B. (2009). Tillvaroväven. Formas.
O’Brien, K. (2021). You matter more than you think. cCHANGE Press.
Whatmore, S. (2002). Hybrid geographies: Natures, cultures, spaces. SAGE.
Latour, B., Salk, J., & Woolgar, S. (2013). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts.
Swanson, D. R. (1979). Libraries and the growth of knowledge. The Library Quarterly, 49(1), 3–25.
Ziman, J. (2019). Rethinking science as a vocation: One hundred years of bureaucratization of academic science. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 47(5), 1057–1085.
Ten Holter, C. (2020). The repository, the researcher, and the REF: “It’s just compliance, compliance, compliance”. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 46(1), 102079.
Edwards, R. (2022). Why do academics do unfunded research? Resistance, compliance and identity in the UK neo-liberal university. Studies in Higher Education, 47(4), 904–914.
Macfarlane, B. (2021). The neoliberal academic: Illustrating shifting academic norms in an age of hyper-performativity. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(5), 459–468.
Chubb, J., & Reed, M. S. (2018). The politics of research impact: Academic perceptions of the implications for research funding, motivation and quality. British Politics, 13(3), 295–311.
Shore, C., & Wright, S. (1999). Audit culture and anthropology: Neo-liberalism in British higher education. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5(3), 557–575.
Hermanowicz, J. C. (2021). Honest evaluation in the academy. Minerva, 59(3), 311–329.
Hamann, J., & Ringel, L. (2023). The discursive resilience of university rankings. Higher Education, 86(4), 845–863.
Altbach, P. G., Salmi, J., & Yudkevich, M. (2023). The context of academic excellence initiatives. In P. G. Altbach, J. Salmi, & M. Yudkevich (Eds.), Academic Star Wars: Excellence Initiatives in Global Perspective (pp. 1–10). Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press.
Tribe, J. (2010). Tribes, territories and networks in the tourism academy. Annals of Tourism Research, 37(1), 7–33.
Plaisance, K. S., Michaud, J., & McLevey, J. (2021). Pathways of influence: Understanding the impact of philosophy of science in scientific domains. Synthese, 199(1), 4865–4896.
Star, S. L., & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–1939. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420.
Gieryn, T. F. (1995). Boundaries of science. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
De Sousa Santos, B. (2016). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. London & New York: Routledge.
Kwiek, M. (2023). The globalization of science: The increasing power of individual scientists. arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.03313.
Rapatahana, V., & Bunce, P. (Eds.). (2012). English language as hydra: Its impacts on non-English language cultures (Vol. 9). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Woolcott, G., Keast, R., & Pickernell, D. (2020). Deep impact: Re-conceptualising university research impact using human cultural accumulation theory. Studies in Higher Education, 45(6), 1197–1216.
Hornborg, A. (2019). Colonialism in the Anthropocene: The political ecology of the money-energy-technology complex. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 10(1), 7–21.
Muller, J. (2018). The tyranny of metrics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lauronen, J. P. (2020). The dilemmas and uncertainties in assessing the societal impact of research. Science and Public Policy, 47(2), 207–218.
Tharapos, M., & Marriott, N. (2020). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Research quality in accounting education. The British Accounting Review, 52(5), 100934.
Watermeyer, R., & Tomlinson, M. (2022). Competitive accountability and the dispossession of academic identity: Haunted by an impact phantom. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54(1), 92–103.
Curry, S., Gadd, E., & Wilsdon, J. (2022). Harnessing the Metric Tide: Indicators, infrastructures & priorities for UK responsible research assessment.
Alpaydın, U. A. R., & Fitjar, R. D. (2021). Proximity across the distant worlds of university–industry collaborations. Papers in Regional Science, 100(3), 689–712.
Amano, T., González-Varo, J. P., & Sutherland, W. J. (2016). Languages are still a major barrier to global science. PLoS Biology, 14(12), e2000933.
Marginson, S., & Xu, X. (2023). Hegemony and inequality in global science: Problems of the center-periphery model. Comparative Education Review, 61(1).
Dymitrow, M., & Brauer, R. (2026). Peer review from hell: On epistemic injustice, institutional power, and the pitfalls of transdisciplinary collaboration In V. Mihaylov & M. Dymitrow (Eds.), Asymmetrical epistemic order(s): State of affairs, contestations, alternatives. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Ersoy, E. (2023). Epistemic hierarchies and asymmetrical dialogues in global IR: Increasing the epistemic gravity of the periphery through thematic density. Third World Quarterly, 44(3), 513–531.
Confraria, H., Godinho, M. M., & Wang, L. (2017). Determinants of citation impact: A comparative analysis of the Global South versus the Global North. Research Policy, 46(1), 265–279.
Collyer, F. M. (2018). Global patterns in the publishing of academic knowledge: Global North, Global South. Current Sociology, 66(1), 56–73.
Turba, R., Thoré, E. S., Bertram, M. G., Bridg, H., Sabet, S. S., Gamboa, M., … & Marín, C. (2026). Global North–South science inequalities due to language and funding barriers. Peer Community Journal, 6.
Fricker, M. (2017). Evolving concepts of epistemic injustice. In The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (pp. 53–60). London & New York: Routledge.
Bhakuni, H., & Abimbola, S. (2021). Epistemic injustice in academic global health. The Lancet Global Health, 9(10), e1465–e1470.
Aragon, C. (2019). Global gender justice and epistemic oppression: A response to an epistemic dilemma. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 5(2).
Beigel, F. (2014). Publishing from the periphery: Structural heterogeneity and segmented circuits. The evaluation of scientific publications for tenure in Argentina’s CONICET. Current Sociology, 62(5), 743–765.
Mihaylov, V., & Dymitrow, M. (2026). Putting self-peripheralization in the global knowledge order. New Global Studies, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2025-0017
Chann, S. (2024). A geographer’s place matters: Reflections from a ‘local scholar’ and the politics of North/South knowledge production. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 49(2), e12661.
Selvaratnam, V. (1998). Higher education co-operation and Western dominance of knowledge creation and flows in Third World countries. Higher Education, 17, 41–68.
Sperduti, V. R. (2017). Internationalization as Westernization in higher education. Comparative & International Education, 9(4), 9–12.
Yang, S., Zheng, M., Yu, Y., & Wolfram, D. (2021). Are Altmetric.com scores effective for research impact evaluation in the social sciences and humanities? Journal of Informetrics, 15(1), 101120.
Godrie, B. (2025). Resisting scientific extractivism: A post-extractivist policy of knowledge production with marginalized communities. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 18(1), 1–14.
Mihaylov, V. (2026). Our utopian future: Imagining a sustainable, dialogical, and inclusive world. Routledge, London and New York.
Cai, Y., & Etzkowitz, H. (2020). Theorizing the Triple Helix model: Past, present, and future. Triple Helix, 7(2–3), 189–226.
Andersson, D. E., & Andersson, Å. E. (2020). The impossibility of the Triple Helix. Prometheus, 36(3), 235–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2020.1756035
Brauer, R. (2023). Research impact education: A systems perspective on two competing views of higher education. Trends in Higher Education, 2(2), 374–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43207-023-00109-5
Vickers, E. (2020). Critiquing coloniality, ‘epistemic violence’ and western hegemony in comparative education: The dangers of ahistoricism and positionality. Comparative Education, 56(2), 165–189.
van Meeteren, M., Bassens, D., & Derudder, B. (2016). Doing global urban studies: On the need for engaged pluralism, frame switching, and methodological cross-fertilization. Dialogues in Human Geography, 6(3), 296–301.
Mamlok-Naaman, R. (2024). Diversity and inclusion in science education. Why? A literature review. CEPS Journal, 14(1), 13–31.
Macfarlane, B. (2021). The neoliberal academic: Illustrating shifting academic norms in an age of hyper-performativity. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(5), 459–468.
Hill, S. (2016). Assessing (for) impact: Future assessment of the societal impact of research. Palgrave Communications, 2(1), 1–7.
Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S., & Rafols, I. (2015). Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520(7548), 429–431.
Elmessiri, A. M. (2006). In A. M. Elmessiri (Ed.), Epistemological bias in the physical and social sciences (pp. xii–xix). London – Washington: International Institute of Islamic Thought.
Nelson, M. K. (2014). Indigenous science and traditional ecological knowledge: Persistence in place. In R. Warrior (Ed.), The world of Indigenous North America (pp. 188–214). New York: Routledge.
Ferretti, F., & Barrera de la Torre, G. (2023). Cosmohistories and pluriversal dialogues: The future of the history of geography. Dialogues in Human Geography, 14(2), 197–201.
Al-Hardan, A., & Go, J. (2025). Anticolonialism in history and social theory. Global Dialogue, 15(2), 37–39.