Getting by in a bibliometric economy: scholarly publishing and academic credibility in the Nigerian academy

Abstract Why are Nigeria’s universities launching a growing number of open access journals while simultaneously expecting their academic staff to publish ‘internationally’? And what impact do these expectations have on Nigerian journals? Drawing on interviews with editors and publishers, we describe the emergence of a hyperlocal ‘credibility economy’ within the Nigerian academy. The great majority of Nigerian scholarly journals are excluded from Scopus and Web of Science, the two main global citation indexes. Stigmatized by geography, Nigerian journals are ignored, rendered invisible, classed as poor quality or condemned as ‘predatory’. Historicizing these trends, we illustrate our argument with four case studies: two science and technology journals hosted by universities and two independent publishers, one with expertise in African studies, the other in information studies. In each case, we explore the motivations, commitments and strategies of editors and publishers. Their stories exemplify the impact of colonial histories, global discourses and bibliometric infrastructures on African research publishing cultures. The histories, logics and fragilities of this regional research ecosystem reveal how Africa’s scholars and publishers are getting by – but only just – amid the metricized judgements of the global research economy.