>From a swiss / german perspective there is nothing surprising in journals
restricting themselves to one language, in monolingual reference lists and
in movements for strengthening the native language and corresponding
relations. This happens probably in most national(istic) contexts, and it
is not fair to blame only the English community for it.
In order to contribute to more open and pluralistic channels of
communication, I think, it is important to keep two things apart: What Paul
Treanor refers to could be called attempts to use english or other
languages for eclusive purposes. These are usually connected to
nationalistic (and sometimes but not necessarily hegemonial) movements. But
there is alway the other side, to offer a language for inclusive purposes.
This means to provide some kind of support for non-native speakers to
express themselves in this language, and to support and encourage native
speakers to speak to other audiences. Attempts of this kind should not be
restricted to english only.
Beside this, the real gap does not run between english and say french or
german, but between european languages and others. Even a completely
english or german reference list will usually show some translated titles
or cover issues of international (european - north-american - australian)
debates. So there are many hidden links to the neighbour cultures, forming
a kind of extended family. However, there seem to be relatively few
contributions from african, latin-american and asian authors, although
millions are well educated in english or french. Isn't that a hint, that
the problem of international access and intercultural exchange goes far
beyond "language"?
Are there listening any non-european critical geographers? How do you
perceive this?
Wolfgang Zierhofer
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