When Mobility Barriers Shape Who Gets Heard in Global Research

Science is increasingly global, and collaboration across national borders between researchers has become one of its driving forces. Mobility is central to this process; it makes collaboration possible and, in turn, is influenced by it. Yet, when considering research collaboration between researchers in the so-called Global North and Global South, numerous challenges prevail, and mobility is one of the most significant. Unequal access to visas, funding, and travel opportunities can influence which perspectives find their way into global academic discussions and knowledge production.

Epistemic injustice refers to unfairness in how knowledge is recognized and whose voices are taken seriously. The philosopher Miranda Fricker (2017), who coined the term, introduced it in a feminist context to describe two main forms of such an injustice: one in which women’s experiences and testimonies are doubted, and another in which they face barriers to accessing institutions of knowledge and positions of power.

What Epistemic Injustice Means in Global Research

The global science system often makes it harder for researchers from the Global South to fully participate in global knowledge production, which means that their perspectives are therefore less likely to be taken into account. This is particularly problematic in sustainable development projects, where local experience is crucial. Mobility barriers play an important role in this dynamic and can lead to what is considered “distributive epistemic injustices,” forms of unfairness that limit whose knowledge is recognized.

Mobility Barriers Exclude Researchers

Mobility is more difficult for researchers from the Global South, but mobility from the Global North to the Global South also presents its challenges. These difficulties can be explained by restrictive border regimes, fewer flight connections, and a lack of resources to support travel. Researchers in the Global South have a much harder time securing visas for field research or conferences, while researchers from the Global North struggle with the longer distances and expense of travel to the Global South. (Abu Moghli, Shuayb, 2022; Walker, Martinze-Vargas, 2020)

These difficulties can lead to epistemic injustices, as researchers in the Global South may be unable to attend in-person meetings or events, and therefore, cannot fully participate in joint knowledge production. One interviewee explained: “I would love to know more about what I missed at the conference in Spain, and I was invited. But it took a long time for them to get me a visa. So, I just gave up.” Another researcher emphasized how useful it would be to be able to visit their research partner in the Global North, “so that international exposure and cooperation isn’t just one way.”

Mobility from the Global North to countries in the Global South can also be challenging, and this creates difficulties in research collaborations. Transporting research material is often complicated by high costs and customs regulations, and important information can be lost when teams cannot meet in person.

Meeting in Person Still Matters

One African researcher described a project involving a device developed with a European partner: “We did lots of […]demos opening up the device, demonstrating how it works, but it’s never really the same in person. So definitely, there was a steep learning curve, and it took quite a bit of time for them to fully understand the technology in order to make recommendations on how to improve[…] [I]t has been a challenge, and we never met each other in person.”

Another important aspect is that mobility helps research partners develop a shared understanding of the specific contexts they each work in. One researcher pointed out: “So, I had a lot of Americans who were here the past two weeks, and they’ve been so traumatized by the experience in [ an African country], because a lot of the things that we expressed as difficulties when they were back in the US, they couldn’t understand. But the past ten days they’ve been here have been so hard on them that they had to say, listen, we just apologize to you guys for not believing us when you said this was so hard to do. […] They’ve been to South Africa or […] Kenya, and they just think, this is how things are in every other country.”

An overarching issue that occurs when mobility is restricted is the impact on interpersonal relationships. Several researchers mentioned that trust is very important in collaborative projects and that it is much easier to build through face-to-face meetings. As one interviewee explained: [W]hen it is virtual, we may not be able to express some of those things you are going through now. […] The disadvantages stem from the fact that […] our feelings may not be easily expressed.”

Supporting Fair and Effective Collaboration

Overall, mobility constraints can become an important obstacle to successful collaboration and ultimately limit the participation of researchers from the Global South in global science. This makes mobility a matter of epistemic injustice.

Funders of collaborative projects and researchers in the Global North should therefore ensure that any cooperation with researchers in the Global South includes opportunities for travel in both directions. The dissertation data show that dedicated mobility funding can make a substantial difference. And even when no such dedicated funding exists, researchers can find alternative ways to support travel once they recognize how important it is to meet in person and understand each other’s working contexts.

Julia Wiethüchter works as a Postdoc Researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research at the University of Münster and focuses on the intersection of sustainability research and questions of global power dynamics.

Note: The reflections of this article draw on interviews conducted as part of a dissertation on collaborative research projects and their role in epistemic injustice in the global science system (Wiethüchter, 2023).

References:

–Abu Moghli, M. and Shuayb, M. (2022) ‘Equitable Partnerships for Education: A Myth or a Panacea’, Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques (53), pp. 177–201.
–Dannecker, P. Collaboration in a ‘North–South’ Context: The Role of Power Relations and the Various Context-Based Conditions. Eur J Dev Res 34, 1716–1726 (2022).
–Fricker, M. (2017) ‘Evolving concepts of epistemic injustice’, in Kidd, I.J., Medina, J. and Pohlhaus, G. (eds.) The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice. (Routledge handbooks in philosophy). London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 53–60.
–Walker, M., & Martinez-Vargas, C. (2022). Epistemic governance and the colonial epistemic structure: towards epistemic humility and transformed South-North relations. Critical Studies in Education, 63(5), 556–571.
–Wiethüchter, J. (2023) Fördermittelgeber als unsichtbare Forschungspartner. Epistemische Ungerechtigkeit in globalen Forschungskooperationen. In: die Hochschule 1-2/2023, S. 20-30.

To go back to our blog series on International Academic Mobility.