Building on the insight that all knowledge is situated and embodied, we analyze the gender of gatekeepers in the production of geographical knowledge in the current Anglophone publication landscape. Our results show that the share of women gatekeepers throughout the three selected sites-handbooks, progress reports, as well as editors and editorial boards of twentytwo geography journals-is consistently between 36 and 42 percent. These averages, however, disguise widely varying figures between different handbooks and journals. Comparing data for journal editors and editorial boards between 1999 and 2017, we find considerable growth in the presence of women. We also show that a higher share of female editors is associated with a higher share of women in editorial boards and in commissioned contributions. Editors and journals therefore need to put gender equity (but also racial and language equality) among the board and among contributors squarely on the agenda to create more space for new theoretical approaches, issues, and methodologies that center the lives and experiences of those living in spaces outside of the white Anglosphere-in the Global South and the Global East but also in the Global North.
This paper shows how academics from the postsocialist countries of the Global East are increasingly claiming a voice in the publishing space of international geography journals. Based on a longitudinal database of editors, board members and authors of 22 leading English-language geography journals since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it demonstrates how the number of authors from postsocialist countries, notably from the new EU member states, has risen almost seven-fold since the 1990 s, exhibiting the strongest growth rate among all world regions. Yet, their roles as gatekeepers of academic knowledge (editors, board members) are much weaker. With its analysis, the paper intervenes in epistemological debates about the marginal role of the postsocialist Global East in the geopolitics of knowledge. It suggests that despite constant challenges, academics from the postsocialist Global East are becoming more and more visible internationally. It is, therefore, an opportune time to articulate a collective epistemological project, pushing for a greater role in redefining its conditions and modalities -all the while being mindful that no amount of conceptual innovation expected from scholars of the region can make up for a critical reflection of inherently difficult political issues in increasingly neoliberalized academic knowledge production.
As English is advancing to become the world’s academic lingua franca, English-language journals increasingly need to reflect knowledge production on a global scale. Our graphic shows how the majority of geography journals still remain strongly anchored in Anglophone countries. A few journals, however, lead the way in the decolonial imperative to decentre knowledge production.
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