Fostering knowledge enrootment: using writing support to advance meaningful scholarship in the global south

In the context of uneven knowledge production, where institutions in the global south respond to the imbalance by unrealistically demanding contribution to ‘global’ knowledge economy dominated by global-north academe, this action research reports the findings of a community writing support program that was designed to enable two dozen scholars from Bangladesh, India, and Nepal to meet the institutional publication demands more purposefully. Based on thematic analysis of survey responses, semi-structured interviews, and program notes, we show how locally grounded support initiatives fostered the scholars’ epistemological agency. We theorise that especially if scholars in the global south use writing support and collaboration to make their research locally enrooted in terms of context and issues, mentorship and collaboration, intellectual purpose and knowledge application, it can counter global neoliberal forces that undermine the production of locally relevant knowledge.