A perhaps esoteric issue that may be of interest to those in N America,
or with aspirations to publish in the Annals of the AAG.
After considerable discussions in the corridors of power at the
Association of American Geographers (see postings on this Forum about a
year ago), The Annals is being totally restructured from 2001, to include
four major subsections with 4 editors, as well as a managing editor.
The 4 sections are:
- Environmental Sciences
- Geomatics and Visualization
- People, Places and Society
- Synthesis and Synergy
Further details are at
http://www.aag.org or in the August 1999 AAG Newsletter
and I have printed a detailed comment in an AAG Specialty Group
Newsletter, with comments from Prof BL Turner II (who is questioning
this change) at
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/cen/cen34.html
There are at least two problems here.
Firstly, as Turner says,
"25% of our profession is clustered in the eight or so human-environment
specialty groups. Many, if not most, of these folks were drawn to
geography .... because of geography's long standing work in
human-environment studies (Humboldt-Marsh-Ratzel-Sauer-White)".
There appears to be no section devoted to this tradition -
human-environment work - in the proposed four-fold Annals division.
'Environmental Sciences' means physical geography, 'People Places and
Society' is basically human geography, while 'Synthesis and Synergy' is a
broad category making no mention of human-environment work. There is no
obvious place to submit an article dealing with - say - political
ecology, environment & development issues, human dimensions of global
change, views of nature, or natural hazards and mitigation. Although it
is clear that good articles on those themes might be found a home in the
journal somewhere after its rigorous refereeing process has been
completed, it seems to me that the proposed format of articles,
discussion pieces, and shorter contributions grouped in each section
effectively excludes sustained contributions and replies on these themes.
Clarification is needed on this from the AAG office, and this Forum might
be a good place to address the wider geographical community on this
issue. If we want to suggest that Geography consists of physical, human,
and techniques based work in this way, we are leaving out a major chunk
of the discipline, and creating artificial boundaries to boot.
Secondly, read the August 1999 AAG Newsletter and you will see an odd
comment from the AAG president, Reg Gollege, to the effect that the new
Annals should "represent the best in AMERICAN geography" and he proposes
the international community as an "audience" for the journal, not as
contributors. I expect this is an unfortunate choice of phrase, which
will be corrected in the next Newsletter issue. If taken at face value,
this suggests a disdain for non-American intellectual traditions and
work, that is not mirrored in other, similar professional national
journals eminating from Australia (the AG), Netherlands (TESG), Germany
(Geojournal), Britain (the TIBG) and so-on. What of 'hybrid' geographers
with only one foot on the North American prodfessional tradition? And
overseas AAG members? Are they welcome to publish there, or not?
I would remind readers that these issues are particularly sensitive in
North America. In fact I hesitated to raise them, since I could risk a
backlash. Academic tenure for assistant professors is pretty hard to
obtain, and the jewel in the crown on the CV you submit to your tenure
review committee (usually after 5-6 years of lecturing post-PhD) is an
article in the Annals, the American discipline's top journal. The
'pecking order' of journals is very pronounced and, as I was told myself
at an interview in the US recently, the Annals comes top in 'prestige'
terms when you seek tenure or further promotion. Short of a radical
change of view about the importance of this journal (unlikely), we need
to consider the issue of th epotential exclusion of human-environment
contributions, and the effect the journal restructuring may have on
academic careers, very seriously.
On a less serious note, the Annals represents great value for money (if
you are an AAG member) and publishes great stuff. Long may this continue
- and let us hope we receive an assurance soon that those working outside
of north American paradigms, or exploring themes excluded from the
proposed fourfold classification of the journal, will still have a place
in it.
-----------------------------
New address from Sept. 1 1999:--
Dr. Simon Batterbury
Development Studies Institute
London School of Economics (LSE)
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
fax (44 0)20-7955-6844,
telephone (+44 0)20-7955-7771 (direct) 7425 (DESTIN).
Room T305, St Clements building.
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/simon.html
email: [log in to unmask] (not yet working!)
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