The Veiled Yoke: An Examination of Neocolonialism in the Framework of Global Academic Citation

Abstract

The global academic enterprise, despite its professed ideals of universalism and meritocracy, operates within a system of knowledge production and validation that perpetuates historical power imbalances. This article argues that the dominance of Western-centric citation indexes and evaluation metrics constitutes a form of neocolonial imperialism. By examining the historical origins and contemporary practices of major databases, we illuminate how they systematically marginalize scholarship from the Global South—encompassing Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We identify four principal mechanisms of this hegemony: bibliometric bias, linguistic imperialism, the perpetuation of intellectual dependency, and digital paywalls coupled with the suppression of shadow libraries. This article posits that a true decolonization of knowledge demands not only the acknowledgment of these biases but also the resolute re-evaluation and reform of the structures governing global research recognition.