‘As I have already told you twice, I do not see your future in academia.’
These were the words my PhD supervisor said to me when I asked about the possibility of applying for a postdoctoral position with them in Switzerland. I was shocked. How could someone be so discouraging—so dismissive—to a young, early-career researcher from the Global South fleeing authoritarianism while researching queer lives in authoritarian Azerbaijan?
This moment was more than a personal disappointment. It crystallised a broader set of questions I had been grappling with throughout my doctoral studies: How do white, privileged academics in Europe build their careers on extractive research practices in regions such as the South Caucasus? Was I being used by my supervisor—just another ‘exotic country’ added to their CV under the guise of academic supervision? What institutional mechanisms allow them to position themselves as experts on places they may only have partial or instrumental relationships with? And why are the voices and intellectual contributions of researchers, activists, and thinkers from these very regions so often marginalised, dismissed, or silenced?
I am not the first to critique the coloniality of knowledge production in academia. The call to decolonise research institutions and scholarly frameworks has gained increasing power across disciplines (Gunaratnam 2003; Tlostanova 2015; Bakshi et al. 2016; Pratt et al. 2025; and many others). However, the specific exploitation of young, often precarious, researchers and activists from the South Caucasus remains a largely undiscussed issue. In particular, those researching feminism, authoritarian governance, and post-Soviet subjectivities are routinely recruited into research projects as ‘local informants,’ ‘fixers,’ or fieldwork facilitators—rarely as equal intellectual collaborators. At the same time, scholars from the region who seek to contribute to broader theoretical debates or engage with European literature are often met with skepticism, as if overstepping their epistemic place: “Who are you to tell us something? Go research your own region.”
Since beginning my PhD in 2020, I have paid close attention to how European academics—often white, institutionally secure, and fluent in the language of progressive scholarship—use the South Caucasus (especially Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh) as a career-building platform. For many, the region functions as a trampoline, a metaphorical launchpad, for their publications, grants, and professional mobility. Meanwhile, the situated knowledge, political labour, and lived experiences of local researchers are either erased or relegated to footnotes. In this piece, I reflect on how the dynamics of race, privilege, and academic hierarchy play out in research engagements that claim to be collaborative yet reproduce colonial power relations. By situating my own experience within these broader structures, I seek to open a conversation on the politics of knowledge production in and about the South Caucasus, and to challenge the enduring structures that marginalise those of us whose lives are most entangled with the field.
As an important clarification, I want to emphasise that not all white, privileged scholars are extractivist, nor are they the sole targets of my decolonial critique. It would be both inaccurate and unfair to homogenise such a diverse group. I fully acknowledge that there are a few scholars from the Global North who genuinely engage with the field and remain committed to the region even after their research concludes.
In this piece, I want to address two interconnected issues. First is the systemic gatekeeping practiced by white, privileged scholars toward researchers from the Global South—a gatekeeping that functions as a mechanism of control over knowledge production. This is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, epistemic hierarchies have defined what counts as legitimate knowledge and who gets to speak with authority. Yet, experiencing these dynamics firsthand, especially during the process of writing my PhD, revealed just how entrenched and personal these forms of exclusion can be.
Contrary to the ideal of academic freedom, I quickly learned that you cannot shape your dissertation entirely on your own terms. You are constantly negotiating with the expectations and judgments of your supervisor, who, even if they once struggled themselves, now enforces the very systems they may have once resisted. The transformation of the once-oppressed into gatekeeping oppressors is one of the most painful aspects of academic life. This exemplifies how academia can be a ruthless, extractive environment, especially for those of us from the Global South, writing on politically sensitive or marginalised topics such as queer life under authoritarianism.
Yes, white privileged academics face pressures too, but they often choose to sustain and reproduce the very hierarchies they once endured. The result is a system where your work is judged not so much by its intellectual merit or political urgency, but by whether it fits the unstated criteria upheld by these dominant academic actors. In this regime, it does not matter how much intellectual labour you perform or how deeply you engage with your field. What matters is how many articles you publish in so-called ‘high-impact’ Q1 journals, and whether your citation metrics meet the standards defined by Western scientific institutions. Grant applications to major Western funders are similarly evaluated through a narrow, quantitative lens—prioritising citation rankings and publication histories over critical content, situated knowledge, or political commitment.
Another layer of this systemic gatekeeping is the particular form of control and surveillance I have encountered within German-speaking academia. Over the course of my academic journey, working with German-speaking scholars has often been among the most disempowering experiences in terms of academic integrity, independence, and collegiality. Feedback is almost always delivered in a disproportionately critical tone, often without acknowledgment of good work. In conversations with peers from similarly marginalised backgrounds, I have found this to be a common pattern: when one receives a rare positive comment from a German-speaking academic, it is interpreted as a signal that the work is not just good, but exceptionally good. Yet such acknowledgment is almost never made explicit by supervisors or colleagues.
Beyond these interpersonal dynamics, the institutional culture of German academia reinforces strict boundaries around what can be said, researched, or published. One of the most disturbing recent examples is the silencing of scholars who speak out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Over the past two years, as violence and displacement have intensified in Palestine, many academics in Germany have remained silent, or worse, complicit. Those who have dared to speak out have faced public smear campaigns, disciplinary threats, and, in some cases, termination of employment. This censorship reveals the deeply politicised nature of ‘acceptable speech’ in German academia and exposes the contradiction at the heart of so-called academic neutrality. Once again, we are reminded that academic freedom is not equally distributed; it is granted selectively, depending on who is speaking, and about what.
It is also important to highlight that the public funding used to support academic research in the Global North, particularly within the European Union, largely comes from wealth accumulated through centuries of colonial extraction. In many ways, this taxpayer-funded research money is not neutral or benign; it is rooted in resources, labour, and wealth that were violently stolen from the Global South. Today, these funds are often used to study the very regions that were colonised, dispossessed, and brutalised by the same European powers. This cycle of epistemic and material extraction continues under the guise of academic inquiry, with white European scholars once again granted the authority—and the financial means—to define, interpret, and narrate the realities of the Global South. The irony is bitter: those who were once colonisers now receive grants to explain the conditions they helped create, while scholars from the Global South are left to fight for recognition, funding, and access within systems designed to exclude them.
The second issue of this piece is exploitative scholarship. As someone from the South Caucasus, similar to the experiences of many local activists and scholars of the region, I have observed how researchers from the Global North repeatedly engage in extractive research practices. These scholars often arrive with limited knowledge of the region, collect data quickly, publish their findings in high-ranking journals, and then disappear. The relationship ends once the publication is out. There is rarely any sustained engagement with the communities or political realities they studied. In some cases, they even collaborate with dubious or politically compromised local organizations to facilitate access or bolster credibility—partnerships that serve their own research agendas while undermining local struggles and ethical accountability.
In authoritarian contexts such as Azerbaijan, I have noticed a troubling pattern: many foreign scholars are warned against returning to the field, either because of the political risks or due to having stirred controversy during their initial visits. This raises important questions about the ethics of research and the power dynamics embedded in knowledge production. It also illustrates how little some of these scholars understand about the field they claim to be experts in, even before arriving. This is where feminist standpoint theory becomes vital. It reminds us that knowledge is not produced in a vacuum. Rather, it is shaped by the researcher’s positionality—by their class, race, gender, and geopolitical location. Applying this framework to the South Caucasus forces us to ask: Who is telling the story of this region? And from where are they telling it?
Extractive, colourblind, and depoliticised research not only misrepresents the complexities of local realities; it also contributes to a distorted, one-sided understanding of the region’s sociopolitical and anthropological histories. It enables Global North scholars to build careers while local activist-researchers continue to struggle for institutional recognition, let alone funding or academic security. I recall a particularly telling example: after conducting fieldwork in Azerbaijan, a European scholar responded to online trolling not with restraint, but by engaging in similarly offensive and humiliating language. Rather than ignoring or critically addressing the attacks, they publicly mirrored the trolls’ tone—raising serious questions about their ethical commitments as a researcher. And yet, despite such incidents, scholars like this continue to receive prestigious grants and institutional backing to carry out further research. Meanwhile, critical local scholars, who possess deep contextual knowledge and long-standing ties to the communities, find it nearly impossible to secure PhD funding, postdoctoral fellowships, or tenure-track positions. Also, critical researchers from the region, such as Bahruz Samadov (OC Media 2025), an Azerbaijani PhD student at Charles University, face severe consequences for speaking out about sociopolitical challenges in Azerbaijan, including imprisonment, simply because they do not hold a white, privileged passport from the Global North.
I am also increasingly struck by how scholars from the Global North position themselves as experts on the entire South Caucasus region, publishing frequently about Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, as if these were interchangeable contexts. While the region shares geopolitical entanglements, the internal dynamics and sociopolitical transformations of each country are profoundly different. For my own PhD, I conducted ten months of fieldwork with the queer community in Baku. I was born and raised in the city, and had long-standing ties with queer networks before my research formally began. And yet, even with that level of embeddedness, I knew I had to approach the field with care and humility.
I cannot understand how fragmented, superficial fieldwork, often with limited contextual or linguistic engagement, can pass as legitimate knowledge production. This concern is particularly acute in the field of political science, where articles are often published without deeper anthropological or historical grounding. Yet these publications are not rare; they are rewarded. Collecting data through online channels without ever visiting these countries—and then continuously publishing so-called ‘academic’ knowledge—has become a convenient, extractivist strategy for garnering institutional support and building an academic career in the Global North. Without conducting proper fieldwork, engaging with local contexts, ensuring ethical assurances for research participants, amplifying their voices, and meaningfully collaborating with local scholars (not merely for the sake of optics or visibility), such work should not be considered ethically sound research. Yet, these standards are no longer a real priority for the majority of funding organisations. This no longer surprises me, but it should concern all of us. As local activist-scholars, we must take a collective stand. We must no longer passively accept the presence of Global North researchers who arrive in our region to conduct quick ‘interviews’ and extract data. We must ask critical, pointed questions about their intentions, their methodologies, and what they plan to do with the knowledge they gather. We must reclaim the right to define our own narratives, and to hold accountable those who continue to treat our lived realities as stepping stones in their careers.
What began as a personal encounter with academic gatekeeping has unfolded into a wider critique of the structural inequalities that shape global knowledge production. My experience is not single; it is emblematic of a broader system in which scholars from the Global South are expected to contribute labour, access, and insight, but rarely afforded recognition, autonomy, or reciprocity. Western academia continues to reward extractive methods, flatten complex contexts, and reproduce colonial hierarchies under the guise of objectivity, neutrality, or collaboration. If we are to take seriously the calls to decolonise research, we must confront not only the institutions that sustain these injustices, but also the individuals—supervisors, reviewers, grant evaluators—who choose to uphold them. Reclaiming our narratives, asserting our intellectual agency, and refusing to be complicit in our own marginalisation are not just acts of resistance; they are acts of survival. For those of us whose lives, communities, and political struggles are not separate from our fields of study, academic work is not a performance; it is a form of commitment. And we should no longer allow that commitment to be dismissed, misused, or overwritten.
References
Bakshi, Sandeep, Suhraiya Jivraj, and Silvia Posocco, eds. 2016. Decolonizing Sexualities. Oxford: Counterpress.
Gunaratnam, Yasmin. 2003. Researching Race and Ethnicity: Methods, Knowledge, and Power. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.
OC Media. 2025. ‘Imprisoned Azerbaijani peace activist Bahruz Samadov appeals to Pashinyan’.OC Media. https://oc-media.org/imprisoned-azerbaijani-peace-activist-bahruz-samadov-appeals-to-pashinyan/
Pratt, Nicola, Jabiri,Afaf, Ajour,Ashjan, Shoman ,Hala, Aldossari,Maryam, and Sara and Ababneh. 2025. ‘Why Palestine Is a Feminist Issue: A Reckoning with Western Feminism in a Time of Genocide’. International Feminist Journal of Politics 27 (1): 226–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2025.2455477.
Tlostanova, Madina. 2015. ‘Can the Post-Soviet Think? On Coloniality of Knowledge, External Imperial and Double Colonial Difference’. Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics 1 (2). https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v1i2.38.