Fifty years of Area: Taking stock, looking forward

Abstract

The year 2018 marks Area's 50th anniversary. The past 50 years have witnessed profound shifts in the nature of higher education, in research practices and priorities, and in academic publishing. In this Editorial, we look both to the journal's past and to its future. Firstly, we examine some significant publishing trends in Area between 1998−2018. Secondly, we use these dataand the occasion of the journal's 50th anniversaryto map out possible future priorities for the journal and, indeed, for geography as a discipline. Looking forward, our vision is for a renewed focus on multiple forms of collaboration, co-production and the building of alliances as we seek to retain and sharpen our commitment to publishing cutting-edge geographical research, and to hosting lively, provocative and generative debates about geography as a discipline.

Worlding geography: From linguistic privilege to decolonial anywheres

“…Some journals (such as Social & Cultural Geography , 2018) have specified a preference for candidates from outside Anglo-America in recent searches for editors. Others explicitly problematise the fraught politics of geographical knowledge production and urge ‘processes of unknowing so that we might know differently’ (Kraftl et al, 2018; Oswin, 2018: 615).…”

What is Area to physical and environmental geography?

“…This is as true for physical and environmental geography as it is for any other part of the discipline. As a previous editorial notes: “ Area has provided an important opportunity for physical and environmental geographers to highlight key changes to debates, and data and methods used within the discipline” (Kraftl et al, 2018, p. 437), whether that be in: models and geographical information science; quaternary environmental change; soil science; biogeography and ecosystems; hazards, disasters, and risk; landscape systems; water science; climate change; society–environment relations; resources and environmental management.…”

Towards framing the global in global development: Prospects for development geography

“…Noxolo claims the GCRF produces the “same old colonial processes” (2017a, p. 344). Kraftl et al (2018) suggest the GCRF may nonetheless have offered openings for decolonial work. For example, the GCRF could potentially have enabled minority world geographers to support majority world colleagues to publish in venues that redress the balance of authorship, decolonising academic knowledge.…”