3 Social Justice and Inclusivity: Drivers for the Dissemination of African Scholarship

The Open Access Movement, which gained traction in the early 2000s, was driven in part by the philanthropic principle of sharing scholarly literature for the acceleration of research and the enrichment of education. The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), a founding document for the openness movement, encourages the philanthropic sharing of scholarly literature for the advancement of society.
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Arunachalam and Aulisio, amongst others, stress this philanthropic ethos when they assert that open access frees up the spread of ideas and knowledge for the growth and development of humanity.
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The fundamental premise, acknowledging the cost of subscriptions and licensing barriers, was that all other influences were equal and that this free and unrestricted online access to scholarly literature would advance scholarship and societal development. However, in Africa
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and the better part of the Global South, the cost and licensing barriers are exacerbated by a myriad of other challenges such as poor access to the internet, frequent blackouts, poor information technology infrastructure, and dire lack of skills. Hence, for those in Africa and the Global South, the philanthropic principle thread must be reinforced with the social justice and inclusivity fiber. It must also consider, as does Bethany Nowviskie in this volume, the principles of Afrofuturism and especially the ways in which we can control and build our own infrastructures.