Becoming a scholar under unequal conditions: An analytic autoethnography of authorship, mentorship, and publishing in Nigerian higher education

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Source: OpenAlex

Last checked: 2026-10-11 12:41:02

Abstract

In this autoethnography, I examine my lived experience as a young Nigerian scholar navigating academic publishing within a higher education system characterised by economic constraint, institutional pressure, and unequal global knowledge hierarchies. Drawing on reflective journals, correspondence, institutional documents, and publication records from 2012 to 2025, I analyse how mentorship, promotion expectations, authorship practices, and ethical tensions influenced my scholarly development and publishing decisions. Guided by a constructivist-interpretivist orientation and using thematic and narrative analyses, I discuss formative supervision, informal mentoring, vulnerability to predatory publishing, authorship injustice, ethical awakening, and scholarly leadership. The article considers how principled mentorship can strengthen competence, ethical awareness, confidence, and resilience, while weak supervision, ambiguous authorship norms, and performance pressures can increase exposure to predatory outlets and inequitable research practices. It calls for stronger ethical mentorship, transparent authorship policies, institutional support for publishing literacy, and deliberate journal evaluation practices.

Keywords

autoethnography; authorship ethics; mentorship; predatory publishing; research ethics; Global South

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