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WELCOME TO THE ACADEMY

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the rite of passage into the academic community, that fundamentally adds to knowledge, is not as frictionless as completing a PhD-publishing-theory building. The conventions which govern the process of knowledge extension are highly regulated and largely exclusive practises, and these have profound implications for how we write, what we say, and where we publish it. Newer academics find ourselves in a ‘community’ where researchers from the south often are either dependent on the theoretical formation of the northern gatekeepers, or are altogether left out of critical debates that extend knowledge stores or challenge existing theory. The rewards of being part of an arms-wide-open academic family are not equally felt by all members of the community. Across geographical space, there are territorial barriers to knowledge formation, where research which emerges from the north evolves into theory, while research from the south is viewed as case studies, unable to add to larger global theoretical debates. The paper has a particular focus on agrofood studies and the (dis)placement of the Southern African narrative. I argue that one of the implications of having to ‘jump though the hoops’ successfully and be valued as a productive researcher is to engage with debates established in the north, and to publish in international journals. As a result, there is a loss of both the richness of local empirical research and contextual utility, and the welcome may not be as free as imagined.