This opinion article examines the complex relationship between open-access (OA) publishing and the decolonization of science, highlighting how current OA models may inadvertently perpetuate colonial power dynamics in knowledge production and dissemination. While Global North research institutions increasingly pay for open-access articles to make research publicly accessible, the article processing charges (APCs) create significant barriers for researchers from the Global South. These charges, typically in highly valued currencies like Euros or US dollars, combined with translation costs for non-English speaking countries and reduced funding for science in many Global South nations, reinforce existing inequalities. The paper draws on decolonial scholarship, particularly Walter Mignolo's concept of the geopolitics of knowledge, to analyze how conditioning publication on both Western academic models and economic resources deepens the South/North dependency and maintains the Euro/Anglo-centric hegemony in science. As more prestigious journals become exclusively OA with mandatory APCs, researchers from less-funded institutions face increasing exclusion from knowledge production, even as knowledge access becomes theoretically more democratic. The article concludes by highlighting emerging initiatives to address these inequities, including Science's non-paying public access systems and open-access non-paid journals in the Global South, while emphasizing that decolonizing science and open-access publishing should work in tandem to create a more equitable and inclusive scientific landscape that values diverse knowledge systems.
Bonatti et al. (Wed,) studied this question.