Editorial Policy

“Rather than alternatives, therefore, we need an alternative way of alternatives”

(Jose Manuel Bareto)

Global South Perspectives is an international double-blind peer reviewed journal which explores the knowledge and understanding of past and present developments from a Global South epistemological perspective. We consider Global South epistemologies as those that repudiate the mainstream hegemonic Eurocentric narratives and understandings of global development and which present Europe and North America as the ideological centre of the world. These have since the 15^th century resulted not only in the colonization of the imagination of people of the global south but occasioned the displacement of their knowledge and continue to take a leading role in shaping what constitutes progressive global values and imposing them on the rest of the world.

Based on its epistemological standing therefore, the Journal hopes to publish papers which contribute to delineating the West not as centre but as an alternative and that alternative knowledge is found amongst people and societies of the global south. Such alternatives amongst us have throughout history been discredited or made invisible by the western dominant ways of knowing and continue to experience extreme difficulty in being popularized in Western media including some of its journals. By emphasizing alternatives, the Global South Perspectives envisages a pluriverse world and a successful ‘provincialization’ of Euro-American epistemological hegemony (Santos, 2007)

We therefore welcome empirical, conceptual and review papers that strengthen the Decolonial theoretical framework which amongst other things;

• Presents the socio-economic, technological, scientific and political ingenuity of pre-colonial global south societies as indigenous achievements of rationally civilized people. This contributes to what Ndlovu-Gatcheni (2013) terms; a triumph over an unsustainable Euro-American centric global status-quo in place since the fifteenth century.
• Captures a historical premise of Euro-Global South contact (from the voyages of exploration to globalization) as historically oppressive and exploitative built into the dispossession and control of African political power, economic and knowledge bases with a perpetual determination of keeping the people as hewers of wood and drawers of water.
• Showcases postcolonial and contemporary north-south relations including the UN and Britton-Woods system as detrimental to global south emergence and their socio-economic and political ideologies as entrapments of the global south.
• Most importantly, turns the previously colonised peoples who have been reduced to objects of Euro-American knowledge into participants and generators of knowledge from the vantage points of their geo-and bio-graphical locus of enunciation.
• In brief, manuscripts that will find space in the journal should be from and of the global south as an idea or location. They may essentially be ideologically and theoretically neutral but if they must should be those that depict the development of Global South societies from a nonhegemonic, non-Eurocentric and non-Hamitic hypothetical perspective. Their recommendations and conclusions should advocate global south indigenous solutions to global-south problems so that the development of this region would be etched on a consistent and persistent struggle for new humanism that was clearly defined by Frantz Fanon to mean liberation and self-determination (Fanon 1968) and by Marcus Garvey as ‘universal negro improvement’ that was predicated on self-help principles (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013).

Thank you for choosing to submit your paper to us. Please read these instructions carefully. Following them helps us ensure that we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
Types of papers which can be submitted
We welcome four categories of papers (1) empirical research papers (2) Conceptual/review papers, (3) Opinion pieces and (4) book reviews
Empirical research papers are papers born out of original work with new findings that add to existing body of knowledge in the field. Such papers must be based on verifiable evidence collected by the author(s) of the study. They can be of qualitative, quantitative or of mixed methods in terms of research designs and data analysis.
Conceptual/review papers are papers in which the principal aim of the paper is to elaborate a concept, a theory or an idea. Generally, they are not born of any empirical work but use ideas/findings from other papers to elaborate their position. They are also called review articles. The essence is for the author to raise an issue and articulate a position from which a conclusion is drawn that may validate or repudiate the positions under review.
Opinion Pieces are papers that generally allow the authors to freely express their thoughts about a subject mater. The scientific and publishable value of opinion pieces rests in the fact that while they express an author’s ideas about a phenomenon, such ideas are based on founded truths and are justified by verifiable evidence.
Book Reviews: A book review is a type of scientific writing that evaluates a book based on its content, style and quality. It can be a summary, an opinion and or a critique of the book. It reveals the reviewer’s engagement of the book and helps readers decide whether they want to read it or not. Book reviews are a form of literary criticism and they are highly encouraged as part of every journal issue.
Authors must inform the editor before hand which type of manuscript they are presenting for review and subsequent publication. Such a classification of articles may help the editor determine the structure of each issue of the journal.