Ecology of knowledges and languages in Latin American academic production

Abstract

The Latin American academic production is analyzed relating to its visibility, internationalization, and the ecology of knowledges and languages. Bibliometric tools were used to form a corpus of 2,939 studies in the Scopus database between 2010-2019, analyzed in two dimensions: the output/editorial dimension, and the input/epistemological dimension, focusing on three aspects: (1) evolution per year and per country; (2) most used languages and journals; and (3) international collaborations. The results of the epistemological dimension showed a greater collaboration with authors from the Global North, especially with Spain, the United States and England (in the case of Mexico and Chile) and Portugal (in the case of Brazil). Regarding the quantitative evolution, a steady growth was observed in Latin America, with Brazil occupying the first position. Spanish predominated as the language of publication, although a trend towards English was observed in the second five-year period analyzed, surpassing Portuguese. Taken together, the results of the study suggest that the patterns of academic production in Latin America do not show an ecology of knowledges and languages.

Global English: Neither a “Hydra” nor a “Tyrannosaurus Rex” or a “Red Herring” but an Ecology of Approaches Towards Social Justice

“…Other examples cited by Hultgren (2020) in relation to her first assumption are feelings of linguistic disadvantage contrasted with bibliometric studies that show that though English-dominant countries like Australia, UK, Canada and the USA are usually in the top ten most productive countries in terms of scientific output, so too are non-English-dominant countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Spain and France suggesting that native-speaker status (in the case of English) may not be the only or even the most important factor determining publishing success. Yet, as we have seen in my personal experience in Geneva and in the report of the linguistic panorama of Switzerland (Finardi, 2017) and other countries like Sweden and the Netherlands whose national languages are not as 'strong' as English, and in countries with strong languages such as Portuguese and Spanish (e.g., Céspedes, 2021;Finardi, França, & Guimarães, 2022), there may be some truth in the first assumption, even if we consider only the case of academic publications by non-native speakers of English.…”

“…As an English teacher educator, researcher and engaged applied linguist concerned with social justice and who's been 'courting' decolonial perspectives on Global English (e.g., Jordão, 2014;Jordão & Martinez, 2021;Diniz de Figueiredo & Martinez, 2021;Guilherme & de Souza, 2019) specially and more recently in relation to the area that has become known as English for Academic Purposes (EAP) (e.g., Finardi, 2022;Finardi, França, & Guimarães, 2022), I was very provoked by David Block's claim that if applied linguists wish to redress social injustices, a different approach that included material/class/economic considerations would have to be used.…”

Out of the Comfort Zone

“…Drawing on decolonial perspectives (de Sousa Santos, 2007, & 2020, it is proposed here to move towards the reimagining of systems conceptualising education as a human right that integrates and engages with a range of human experiences, knowledges and languages from both sides of the abyssal lines (de Sousa Santos, 2007;Finardi et al, 2022). Abyssal lines are related to the view that modern Western epistemologies consist of a system of visible and invisible lines that divide the world, whereby knowledges produced in the Global North are visible whereas those produced in the Global South or on the other side of the lines are not.…”

Internationalization of Higher Education and the Role of Languages: Insights from the Global North and the Global South

“…Evidence for this can be found in the concentration of innovations (Thomas & Pugh, 2020), citations (Finardi et al, 2022(Finardi et al, , 2023, and international students (Díaz, 2018) in the North when compared to those in the South. Thus, HEI in the Global South are usually relegated a passive (Lima & Maranhão, 2009), incipient and/or peripheric position of invisibility (De Sousa Santos, 2011) in university rankings (e.g., Finardi & Guimarães, 2017) and on the world stage, participating as 'waiters' rather than as 'guests' in the banquet table of global conversations.…”