Are We Killing Our Own Journals? Rethinking Scholarly Publishing in Africa

 Are We Killing Our Own Journals? Rethinking Scholarly Publishing in Africa

By

Azeez ADEOYE, Ph.D,

Wizard Librarian

How did we get here?

Who convinced us that advertising a journal, promoting its calls for papers, or sending unsolicited emails to potential authors is, by itself, an attribute of a predatory journal?

Too often, we embrace foreign concepts, ideas, and opinions without asking the questions that matter: Who is behind this narrative? What interests does it serve? Who benefits from it? And who is cashing out?

Across Africa, many local, departmental, professional association, and society journals are struggling or have become practically moribund. One reason is that we have failed to market them effectively to the right scholars, researchers, practitioners, and contributors.

Yet every day, our social media feeds and email inboxes are filled with unsolicited messages from major international journal publishers and outlets, including some of the world’s largest and most highly cited journals, inviting us to submit manuscripts, book reviews, technical reports, and other scholarly contributions.

We receive these invitations constantly, and many of us do not hesitate to respond.

But when our own local journals engage in similar forms of outreach, advertising their calls for papers, encouraging submissions, or reaching out directly to scholars, we are quick to dismiss them as “predatory.”

Why the double standard?

We need to interrogate the assumptions we have inherited about scholarly publishing. Not every unsolicited journal invitation is predatory, just as not every journal that markets itself aggressively is legitimate. The real question should be about editorial integrity, peer-review practices, transparency, governance, publication ethics, indexing claims, and the overall quality of the journal, not simply whether the journal contacted us without being invited.

We must be careful not to adopt frameworks developed elsewhere without considering their consequences for our own scholarly ecosystem.

If our local journals are invisible, underfunded, poorly marketed, and unable to attract quality submissions, then African scholarship loses an important platform for producing, preserving, and disseminating knowledge relevant to our societies.

This is not an argument for lowering standards or defending genuinely predatory publishers. Far from it. It is a call for better standards, stronger editorial systems, transparent practices, strategic marketing, and greater investment in African scholarly publishing.

So, let us rethink the conversation.

African scholars, editors, professional associations, and academic societies need to wake up. The Global South must not become passive consumers of narratives about what constitutes legitimate knowledge production and scholarly communication.

Go back to your editorial boards and journal committees. Review your strategies. Improve the quality of your journals. Strengthen your peer-review processes. Build visibility. Use social media, email, academic networks, conferences, and professional associations to reach potential contributors.

Market your journals. Promote your journals. Build your journals.

Let us create vibrant scholarly publishing ecosystems that can compete globally while remaining responsive to the knowledge needs of our communities.

The future of African scholarship should not be determined solely by institutions and publishing systems outside Africa.

It is time to reclaim our journals, strengthen our scholarly infrastructure, and push forward the frontier of knowledge, and the knowledge economy, in Africa and the wider Global South.

Beyond advertising and visibility, I strongly want to encourage the editorial boards of African journals to place equal emphasis on strengthening the rigour and quality of peer review.

While reviewers should provide humane, constructive, and respectful recommendations, observations, and suggestions, their reviews must go beyond grammar correction, formatting, and superficial comments. Peer review should interrogate the substance, credibility, originality, and methodological soundness of the research.

The research methodology section is the backbone of any research work. It should be reviewed rigorously to ensure that the methods are clearly described, logically justified, and sufficiently detailed for the study to be replicated or reproduced in another context or setting. Reviewers should ask important questions: Is the research design appropriate? Are the sampling procedures clearly explained? Are the data collection and analysis methods suitable? Are the instruments valid and reliable? Are the conclusions supported by the evidence?

The same level of rigour should extend to every other section of the manuscript, from the problem statement and literature review to the results, discussion, conclusions, and recommendations.

Importantly, rigorous peer review does not have to be hostile or discouraging. A good reviewer challenges the manuscript in ways that help the author make it stronger. Constructive criticism, when thoughtfully presented, can significantly improve the quality and contribution of a study.

I have personally benefited from excellent reviewer comments from African and other local journals such as Journal of Health and Information and Librarianship (JOHIL: https://johil.org/johil) and Gateway LIS Journal: https://gatewayinfojournal.org/gij. Some of those comments were insightful, rigorous, and genuinely developmental. They challenged my assumptions, exposed weaknesses in the manuscript, and ultimately helped me improve the quality and value of the work.

This is the kind of peer-review culture we should promote.

If we want African journals to gain greater visibility, credibility, and international recognition, we must not only market them better; we must also make them stronger.

Better visibility must go hand in hand with better scholarship. Better marketing must be matched by better peer review. And stronger African journals must be built on rigorous editorial standards.