Monday, January 14, 2013

Geography society journals and power dynamics

GEOIDIOT and GEOSAGE discusses...
What do you think is the main role of society journals?
The ethical role is to fairly encourage and disseminate high-quality academic scholarship. But...
It could be that some journals use the outlet to reward conformance and membership. Such a reward system includes and excludes to create a power group. It's the typical old boys and girls club situation!
I just looked at the society journal The Canadian Geographer. There were 6 chief editor changes in the last 20 years... None of those 6 chief editors were from Eastern Canada universities. Editorial power concentrates in the English west.
Did this Canadian journal situation occur naturally you think?
Understanding the closure of The Operational Geographer publication in the 1990's is a place to start!
Notes:
In the last 20 years, The Canadian Geographer had chief editor changes in the following years: 2010, 2008, 2006, 2002, 1999, 1993.

Thoughts? Share your comments below.

5 comments:

  1. I visited because the name suggested it might be funny. Instead I get a puerile attempt at humour from somebody who clearly has an inferiority complex. No intellectual merit. And the author isn't even brave enough to sign his (or her!) name. Quit wasting everyone's time, dude. Oh yeah, get a life, too.

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    1. Comedy and comic are separate but related things. Comedy is the content which is expected to be funny, but comic is the medium. This blog is about the comic medium used to communicate messages obtained from "looking through the mirrors and behind the curtains" of Canadian geography. The message is more important than the messenger so signing a name is not important - your feedback post content is more important than your GeoGradStudent name.

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  3. I have never heard about the Operational Geographer before now. Wonder if anyone can give some background to it?

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  4. I did a search of my university library and got some of the past issues.

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