Third World Quarterly. Image: Image used under Fair Use: Istanbul Policy Centre. All rights reserved.Two weeks ago, Third World Quarterly, a respected, anti-colonial academic journal that is the home of both the Third World Prize and the Edward Said Prize, published a pro-colonial and not particularly academic article by controversial political scientist, Bruce Gilley (published here; free copy available here). In addition to the kinds of questions and criticisms the article itself encouraged, and that the author perhaps was hoping to provoke, one has to ask questions about the editorial process followed by the journal, and the dubious ethics of publishing such an article in a journal such as this. How did this happen? How could this particular article get published in this particular journal?
Arguing the case for colonialism, and continuing the author’s crusade against what he sees as a left-wing bias in academia, the article has so far prompted: a wave of incredulity and outrage on social media; a couple of petitions (here and here, both of which managed to garner several thousand signatures) calling for the article to be retracted and for the editors to apologise for its publication; a handful of online articles; a problematic response from the editor; and, subsequently, the resignation of a large bulk of its editorial board.
Prior to their resignation, the letter of complaint below (instigated by Claire Gallien, Sara Marino, Patricia Prieto-Blanco and myself, and signed by over 40 international academics) was sent to the journal and to its commercial academic publisher, Taylor & Francis, as well as a copy, listing the various codes of conduct breached, to COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics, of which the journal is a member.
