Speaking of Geography: Language, Power, and the Spaces of Anglo-Saxon ‘hegemony’

Abstract

Adjustment to the Editorial Board First, I would like to thank Roger Keil for his service to the Society and Space Editorial Board. Roger has asked to step down from the board, given his new responsibilities as Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. I would like to thank Roger for his service to the journal over many years, and especially for his efforts to bring German-language urban studies to an English-speaking audience. Carolyn Cartier has taken over from Bruce Braun and Donald Moore as Book Reviews Editor. I would like to thank Bruce and Donald for their service to the journal, and welcome Carolyn as the new Book Reviews Editor. Finally, I am pleased to welcome Wing-Shing Tang to the Editorial Board. Dr Tang studies governmentality and rights to the city in the context of urban (re)development and planning in China and East Asia.

Book reviews inGender, Place and Culture: some analysis and reflections

“…Of all books reviewed only three out of 271 were not written in English, two in Spanish, one in German. This low figure, evidence of the dominance of the English language in geography more generally (Desbiens and Ruddick 2006), was a surprising and rather disappointing finding -although it is worth noting that in a few cases books written in English had been translated or were simultaneously published in another language. Also, although we were not able to gain reliable figures for this, it was not a reflection of the geographical location of authors: some authors were writing in English for English publishers from non-Anglophone contexts.…”

Gender and geography: World views and practices

“…Perhaps for the first time in history it is setting the guidelines for intellectual debate in many parts of the world. Since the turn of the (Minca, 2000;Short et al, 2001;Gutierrez & López-Nieva, 2001;Zusman, 2002;Garcia-Ramon, 2003;Kitchin, 2005;Paasi, 2005;Desbiens & Ruddick, 2006;Foster et al, 2007), though curiously feminist geographers exploration of such asymmetries of power came a little later (Garcia-Ramon et al, 2006). That different contexts produce different feminist traditions in geography is nothing new (Monk, 1994) but what is new and at issue is the constitution of Anglophone journals as an "international" writing space and the limited acknowledgment of their own locatedness (Gregson et al, 2003).…”

Translating productively: texts, contexts and concepts

“…The first issue, what I call 'language and power', subsumes the part of the debate that is concerned with Anglo-American hegemony in a so-called 'international' research and publication environment (Minca, 2000;Moss et al, 2002;Samers and Sidaway, 2000;Gutiérrez and López-Nieva, 2001;Paasi, 2005;Desbiens and Ruddick, 2006). The focus of this part of the debate lies on publication practices as well as on the access of foreign language speakers to the international research world, which is generally equated with being an English language research world.…”

“…One of its starting points is the use of English as the new lingua franca (Minca, 2000;Aalbers, 2004;Kitchin, 2005;Paasi 2005;Desbiens and Ruddick 2006), as the international academic language. This raises certain questions in terms of linguistic dominance and 'linguistic homogenisation' (Short, et al, 2001) or, in different words, 'Anglo-American hegemony' in social science research in general and human geography specifically.…”

“…The limitation of access of non-native English speakers to this seemingly international academic world is in turn problematised. Non-native speakers may feel left behind because of language issues both in terms of publication practices in international (English language) journals, but also at international (English language) conferences (Belina, 2005;Desbiens and Ruddick, 2006). Such exclusions may take place based on linguistic or organisational issues such as who is invited to be a referee for articles (see above), who can partake in the lively discussions at conferences and which theoretical background is expected of contributors in both contexts.…”