The OA movement isgenerally considered to have been founded for the truly philanthropic purposeof promoting equity and inclusivity in access to scholarship. For Africans,this meant the opening of the research ecosystem to marginalised researchcommunities who could then freely make use of shared research to aid in thesocio-economic development and emancipation of the continent. However, this philanthropicpurpose has been deviated from, leading instead to the disenfranchisement ofthe African research community. Through systemic inequalities embedded in thescholarly ecosystem, the publishing landscape has been northernised, withresearch from the global north sitting at the very top of the knowledgehierarchy to the exclusion of Africa and other parts of the global south. Forthis reason, progressive open access practices and policies need to be adopted,with an emphasis on social justice as an impetus, to enhance the sharing andrecognition of African scholarship, while also bridging the ‘research-exchange’divide that exists between the global south and north. Furthermore, advocatesof open access must collaborate to create equal opportunities for Africanvoices to participate in the scholarly landscape through the creation anddissemination of global south research. Thusly, the continental platform wasdeveloped by University of Cape Town. This platform was developed around theconcept of a tenant model to act as a contributor to social justice driven openaccess advocacy, and as a disruptor of the unjust knowledge hierarchies thatexist.
South African responses to open access publishing : a survey of the research community
