[Un] Silencing the Genuine Voices of Young Emerging Scholars on Challenges Facing Young Academics in South African Universities

Abstract

There is a clear systemic motive to silence and undermine the genuine voices of young academics in comprehensive South African universities. The foregoing manifests in various ways including gate-keeping publishing techniques. Senior academics do not emphasize the significance of ‘publish or perish’ mantra as needed and on time for young emerging academics. This continued invidious practice is further perpetuated by the circulating scholarly reports and the media-alike which intentionally do not pay too much attention to this ongoing injustice. Where such is reported, it is often not given too much attention, or rather side-lined and even critiqued. This research article seeks to revisit all the various challenges facing young emerging scholars in South African universities. Due to complicated ethical reasons, the author does not dwell much on pin-pointing universities one by one. Also, this is because the problem seems to be a country-wide systemic instigation to undermine the new emerging voices of young emerging scholars who were previously marginalized and kicked out of the apartheid research system. I, therefore, adopt Afrocentricity as a theoretical lens to challenge the perpetuation of this continued intentional and discriminatory practice against publishing whilst young.

https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.86.1.2500