Predatory Publishing As a Label and Means of Reproducing Global Asymmetries

The presentation will argue for understanding predatory publishing as a label employed to delegitimise research published by scholars based in the Global South, thus a means of reproducing global asymmetries. Building on labelling theory, it is argued that by delineating certain journals as ‘predatory’ (which are mainly located in the South), the powerful position of exclusionary publishing houses in the North is maintained, and global knowledge production is further hindered. When seen from this constructivist perspective – thus not asking about what predatory journals are but rather who employs the label and profits from it – publishing in predatory journals might be seen as one aspect of publishing practices in the context of research evaluation systems and their “gaming” by scholars. The presentation will develop this argument in three steps: I will first introduce the concepts of labelling and moral panic in critical criminology before secondly bringing this into dialogue with current research on predatory publishing. Thirdly, I will discuss the relationship between publishing practices and research evaluation systems beyond notions of “publication pressures” or “gaming evaluation metrics” to argue that, in the end, the label of predatory publishing benefits commercial publishing houses that are exploiting information asymmetries and institutional contexts oriented towards Northern excellence. Lastly, I will present empirical insights from an ongoing study into predatory publishing practices in six national contexts across the Global North and South and discuss preliminary findings on different publishing practices in the context of research evaluation systems.