This study explores how the logic and values of globalization are manifested in international discourses of higher education in relation to scientific knowledge production and how those values are appropriated in national and institutional policies. This study also explores how this confluence of discourses and policies construct scientists in two peripheral countries: Turkey and Mexico. The motivation for this study comes from the largely unexplored impact of geopolitical factors (national and institutional policies for faculty rewards, recruitment, and promotion as well as international evaluation systems) on scientists' academic research and publishing activities. Holland et al.'s ("Identity and agency in cultural worlds." Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998) concept of figured worlds informs the analysis. The results demonstrate that globalization-influenced higher education policies and practices that portray scientific knowledge production as a commodity can create tensions both for nation-states and individual scientists.