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Moments of intersection, rupture, tension: writing and teaching academic disciplines in the semiperiphery John Pill and Amy Wenger Literacy Research Discussion Group

In The Semiperiphery of Academic Writing, Karen Bennett (2014) defines a space of academic practice that she terms the semiperiphery, situated between the two unequal geopolitical spheres of the academic “centre,” on one hand (located primarily in North America and northern and central Europe), and the “periphery,” on the other (located primarily in Asia, Africa, and parts of Latin America). Economic differences between the centre and periphery translate into differences in terms of material resources available to scholars, academic publications they can access, and recognized knowledge they may produce. Bennett notes that universities in the semiperiphery zone perform boundary work between the centre and the periphery, often acting as “conduits for knowledge flows emanating from the centre” to serve institutions and people in more peripheral locations (p. 3). She argues, however, that the semiperiphery is more aptly described as “a place of tension … effervescent with possibilities, allowing dominant attitudes to be challenged and new paradigms to arise in a way that would be unthinkable in centre countries” (p. 7).