Beyond Capitalist Publishers: Building Networks of Solidarity in/As Academic Communities

In the winter of 2024, the Wiley publishing company engaged in what may best be summarized as the corporate takeover and gutting of the academic journal Gender, Work & Organization (GWO). This watershed cut through a longstanding history of progressive, novel and ground-breaking MOS gender scholarship for the last three decades. During these 30 years, the journal gave space and voice for researchers studying issues connected to intersectional differences, gender-based violence, processes of patriarchal marginalization and discrimination against vulnerable bodies and bodies not abiding by heteronormative norms, in society at large and organizations more specifically. However, what happened at GWO is not an isolated case, but merely another of several recent examples of a longstanding issue resulting from the stranglehold of masculinist neoliberal business practices and right-wing politics internationally that have infiltrated academic work, including academic publishing. But instead of leaving quietly, nearly everyone who had been involved in editing the journal walked out while being cheered on by hundreds of colleagues worldwide. We write to share a story and will move through how it matters in manifold ways - to us personally, as writers, researchers, editors, and members of the Gender, Work and Organization (GWO) journal and community (until recently) and to the field of MOS research more broadly, especially when it comes to gender, race, feminist, indigenous, decolonial, and queer critical scholarship. We begin by reflecting on the events that led to a collective act of resistance against the unilateral decisions made by corporate publisher Wiley regarding the future of the journal. While the history of feminist resistance in the academy is long, much of it has, understandably, been directed to the internal workings of universities, higher education and research institutions. With this contribution piece, we instead look to feminist academic resistance to the world of capitalist publishing.