Behind the Scenes of a SCOPUS Q1 (Top 2%) Paper on Decolonization
You know that feeling when you submit a paper and tell yourself, “It’s out of my hands now”? Except it never really is. This month, I was thrilled to see our paper — co-authored with Wojdan Omran — accepted in the International Journal of Gender & Entrepreneurship (SCOPUS Q1, Top 2%). But the journey there? Not so glamorous. Multiple rejections, soul-crushing reviewer #2s, and a persistent voice saying, “Is this too radical?” kept haunting the process.
The paper, titled “Decolonizing Entrepreneurship: Navigating, Resisting, and Transforming Patriarchy through Infrapolitics in Palestine and the Global South”, doesn’t just tick academic boxes — it disrupts them. We reviewed 75 studies and foregrounded how women in the Global South challenge patriarchy and colonial legacies not through protest slogans, but through infrapolitics — subtle, everyday acts of resistance:
Strategic disobedience that bends the rules without breaking them
Quiet activism embedded in culture and craft
Informal networks that bypass patriarchal gatekeeping
Islamic feminism that reclaims spiritual and entrepreneurial agency
We found power not in disruption, but in endurance. Especially for Palestinian women, whose lives are shaped by colonial occupation and patriarchy alike, entrepreneurship becomes a space of covert resistance. It is in the embroidered stitch, the shared kitchen, the home-based business that a radical message takes shape.
What struck me most was how much this resonated with my work in Kazakhstan. Whether it’s a woman stitching suzani in Uzbekistan or running an ecological cleaning brand in Shymkent — these are not just businesses. These are embodied political acts. This paper was our tribute to that spirit.
This was not an easy paper to write. Nor an easy one to place. It challenged dominant Western models, de-centered dominant voices, and forced us to ask: Who gets to define resistance? Who gets to define value?
The final acceptance felt like more than academic validation. It felt like a tiny crack in the wall. A moment when silence spoke loudest. A reminder that resistance doesn't always shout. Sometimes it whispers—and still echoes.