Invisibilizing Eurasia: How North–South Dichotomization Marginalizes Post-Soviet Scholars in International Research Collaborations

Abstract

Despite the growing complexity and multidimensionality of the system of international research collaborations, the colonial discourse casting the collaborative relationships in terms of polarized North–South antitheses persists and continues to exert influence on the nature of power distribution in the relationships, as well as on the conceptualization of some players in the relationship as superior donors, whereas others as inferior recipients. In this article, I demonstrate how dichotomic representation of the geopolitical entities involved in international research collaboration fails to acknowledge the existence and marginalizes a large and extremely talented academic community of Eurasian scholars, which has the potential to enrich and transform the global knowledge system if it becomes more actively and authoritatively involved in the international system of ideas exchange and knowledge generation. I argue that this invisibilization of post-Soviet research community is part of the logic of postcolonial governmentality, which creates the demand and draws the post-Soviet world into international trade in knowledge-related expert services, whereby profits and benefits from the trade are reaped by the countries, which self-categorize as the North, while undermining the potential of the former Soviet scholarly community to contribute to global knowledge production on equal terms.