The Mouth - An Open Access Online Journal for Decolonising the Publication Culture in African Studies

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Angelika Mietzner
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 541701083

"The Mouth" is an interdisciplinary Online-Journal, which critically addresses topics in language, society and culture. The main objective of this project is to advance the already existing journal. On the one hand, this comprises the professionalization and sustainable optimization and archiving of the electronic publication through the implementation of a new cooperation. On the other hand it is necessary and urgent to improve the network strategies and international co-operations, in particular with the so-called Global South, as well as to improve the administration of the organizational and editorial work. Especially the strengthening and expansion of co-operations with academics and other actors from the Global South should also contribute to the decolonization of academic publishing practices. This unique project in African Studies will make a very important contribution to the visibility of critical and marginalized knowledge on several levels: on the one hand, "The Mouth" publishes, connects and popularizes academic works from a so-called "small discipline" in an interdisciplinary manner. On the other hand, academic voices from geographic regions with more difficult access to established and renowned publication organs will receive more attention through the new co-operations. Therefore, this project will also play a part in the innovative stimulation of international academic discourses in which African Studies and Linguistics are involved. The publication of "The Mouth" aims at reaching a new epistemological level of electronic publishing within and beyond the discipline. Furthermore, it is a necessary development to create publication formats that are more flexible and to break down the monopoly of academic texts, that are usually written in a linear manner following fixed, genre-specific patterns of presenting research and knowledge with restricted narrative possibilities. This will not only create a more flexible and diverse interaction of academic content and forms of representation in publication formats, but it will also enable stronger societal outreach, as the multimodal profile provides a more versatile and easier access to academic contents.

• DFG Programme: Science Communication, Research Data, eResearch (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• International Connection: Jamaica
• Cooperation Partner: Joseph Farquharson, Ph.D.