Florence Piron considers the benefits and drawbacks of open access in the Global South, with specific focus on Haiti and Francophone Africa. Piron argues that open access has not, in fact, created more equitable access to knowledge as many advocates have claimed. Rather, she suggests, open access has become a neocolonial tool as it has only increased access to research from the Global North, and only for those who have access to the Internet or research databases. Piron recommends decolonizing open access so that research from around the world is valued and accessible to all, in ways that are appropriate to and make sense for diverse local contexts.

 

Work cited

Piron, Florence. 2018. “Postcolonial Open Access.” In Open Divide. Critical Studies in Open Access, edited by Ulrich Herb and Jaochim Schopfel, 117–28. Litwin Books.