Probably scaremongering. Look at the current editorial board of the Annals
- would they support this proposal? Unlikely.
AAG Presidents have one year appointments, but the Annals has been around
an awfully long time. The debate emerges because Graf's view (expressed in
the AAG Newsletter editorial, last issue) is that physical geographers
should stop whining so much and try to integrate more with colleagues from
other branches of the discipline. Presently they are alienated from even
their own colleagues by attachment to positivist methods and
hypothetico-deductive (?) reasoning. Creating an organ for mutual
exchange and publication to occur in, follows logically from this train of
thought. But remember Will is married to Pat Gober, the previous AAG Chair
and an (excellent) human geographer, and I somehow doubt a radical
overhaul will be on the cards. I am prepared to be corrected.
It is extremely hard to get a paper in the Annals at present, with at
least four referees involved, plus referees for the graphics quality as
well. It can take months to prepare a manuscript that is good enough.
Many give up or never even try. If physical or human geographers make it
this far, their work is of high standard and deserves to be published. The
fact that there have been a few papers in the AAAG recently about critical
realism and discourse is scarcely grounds for concern, I would have
thought. But is it an elite journal? Yes, by virtue of having high
standards, I suppose.
This raises a more general issue for discussion, however. Why is there, in
North America, a feeling that Brits are the major players in 'social
theory' geography, and is this defensible? Is this a form of
cultural racism, or a justified assertion based on an analysis of who the
top authors are in the field (and how many attended UK institutions in
the past, particularly Cambridge...?) . Interesting to hear views. The
incredulity with which sessions at the AAG organised by panels of young
British human geographers are discussed, certainly seems to indicate a
cultural dissonance somewhere. WHich, as someone with a foot very firmly
on both continents (and in Africa), I find interesting and a also rather
funny example of how preaching tolerance in 'society as a whole' sometimes
stop short of tolerating the views of our peers. WHich goes on on both
sides of the pond.
Simon
On Tue, 01 Dec 1998 15:47:48 +0000 Denis Linehan <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Controversy over Plans to merge the Annals of the Association of American
> Geographers and The Professional Geographer, notably as it seems to be
> excluding geographers you have "gone to far" with social theory seems to be
> growing...
>
>
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