Are We Still Dependent? Academic Dependency Theory After 20 Years

Abstract

Academic dependency theory has attracted increasing attention in academia in the last two decades, especially during the last decade. Syed Farid Alatas, a Singapore‐Malaysia based sociologist, has contributed significantly to the popularization of the idea of academic dependency through theorizing and foregrounding the conditions of dependency in Western‐dominated knowledge production and the global division of academic labor. The growing importance of this idea as applied in Asian contexts is however inseparable from the reconfiguration of the world‐systems in which Asia and especially China have achieved great advancement economically and otherwise. In line with this transformation, we have seen an enhanced effort in Asia and the Global South towards decolonization and indigenization in educational and academic domains. We have therefore organized this special issue to engage critically with Alatas's theory and to rethink the status quo of dependency, decolonization and indigenization in Asia, particularly East Asia, in response to a new development in global and local higher education and research. To close our discussion, we call for an action‐based initiative to address and transform the circumstances of dependency and for more genuine global collaborations.

Seeing Like a Native Anthropologist: A Post-Postcolonial Reflection on the Native Turn in Asian Academia

“…Additionally, deriving from my observations of the climbing rankings of NUS and our anthropology program and Chinese universities and reflection on the Covid-19 pandemic, I have started to look more systematically into academic dependency and Western hegemony in knowledge production and advocate digging into indigenous non-Western traditions like Chinese and Tibetan ones as necessary means to decolonize social sciences in Asia and Global South (Tenzin & Lee, 2022). However, I want to emphasize that the academic and ideological dependencies I attend to are not limited to Western theory and ideas.…”

Re-opening an Asia-Scar: engaging (troubled) emotions in knowing, knowledge production and scholarly endeavors

“…If anything, Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and China are now leading the world in terms of demanding that academic staff and researchers working in their higher education systems publish in certain recognized Western-based and Western-initiated journals and publishers. As long as the desire to be recognized and validated by standards and benchmarks of this so-called Western sacred hall is institutionalized, endorsed, and supported by a whole mechanism of funding, promotion, and hiring, the call from Tenzin and Lee ( 2022 , p. 2) “for an action-based initiative to address and transform the circumstances of dependency and for more genuine global collaborations” will fall onto deaf ears. Thus, it appears that the decoloniality circle will continue its conversation, while the on-the-ground reality lives its own life.…”

Brokered Dependency, Authoritarian Malepistemization, and Spectacularized Postcoloniality: Reflections on Chinese Academia

“…Materially, academic peripheries depend on the center for infrastructural, technological, and financial resources (Alatas, 2003, p. 604). Ideologically, academic peripheries are perceived to be dependent on the center not only for its “ideas” (Alatas, 2003, p. 604) but also for “recognition,” which nowadays typically takes the form of international rankings of universities and academic journals (Alatas, 2022, p. 19; Tenzin & Lee, 2022, p. 2).…”

“…For example, Syed Farid Alatas, the leading figure in the current generation of academic dependency studies, expounds the concept by scrutinizing Malaysia and India, two former British colonies in Southeast and South Asia (Alatas, 2000). Correlatedly, “while the issue of academic dependency has been frequently examined in the context of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle-East in the last two decades,” the dependency of East Asian academics has been largely left out of scrutiny until very recently (Tenzin & Lee, 2022, p. 3), a neglect due both to the region’s historical absence from Western colonization in general (apart from exceptions such as Hong Kong), and to its rapid economic development in recent decades.…”