ISSN: 1464-9365 (Print) 1470-1197 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.

com/loi/rscg20

Editorial

To cite this article: (2000) Editorial, , 1:1, 5-7, DOI: 10.1080/14649369950133430

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649369950133430

Published online: 05 Nov 2010.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 250

Citing articles: 2 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rscg20
Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2000
Editorial
We are delighted to welcome you to the Žrst
issue of Social and Cultural Geography. Given
that most of us have in-trays stacked to over-
owing, desks piled high with journals, books
and papers that still await reading, some might
question the logic of publishing a new journal.
We believe, however, that launching a journal
dedicated to social and cultural geography is
worthwhile for a number of reasons. With
Social and Cultural Geography we intend to
provide a transnational forum to report empiri-
cal research, debate current issues and foster
the development of this specialized Želd of
study. Social and cultural geography is one of
the most vibrant and widely practised areas of
geographical research, with strong connections
to other disciplines, yet until now it has not
had a specialized outlet for communication and
debate. Instead, articles reporting empirical re-
search in the Želd have been published in a
variety of journals, some highly specialized and
others generic. Social and Cultural Geography
addresses the fractured nature of academic
communication by providing a well-deŽned lo-
cation in which to publish and read the Žndings
of recent studies, developments in critical de-
bates, and researchers’ views and opinions. The
journal thus provides a middle ground between
highly specialized journals such as Journal of
Cultural Geography, Ecumene and Gender,
Place and Culture and more broad-ranging
journals such as Society and Space, Environ-
ment and Planning A, and the agship journals
of various national geographic associations
ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/ 00/ 010005–03 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
such as Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, The Australian
Geographer and The Canadian Geographer.
Despite having a long heritage, the current
popularity of social and cultural geography can
be traced to more recent developments within
the discipline. In the Žrst instance, the critique
of positivistic approaches to human geography
in the late 1960s were driven largely by social
and economic geographers interested in radical
and humanistic alternatives to understanding
and explaining the relationships between so-
ciety and space. These critiques led to a num-
ber of studies interested in the social fabric of
cities, issues of social justice and the lifeworlds
of individuals. This break was followed by ‘the
cultural turn’ of the late 1980s which estab-
lished new engagements with social and cul-
tural theory, provided innovative ways to think
through geographical ideas and opened up
alternative vistas of study. These changes also
highlighted the importance of space and place
to those outside the discipline of geography. As
a consequence of this cultural reawakening,
social and cultural geography were revitalized,
brought closer together and intertwined to pro-
vide powerful new ways of theorizing and prac-
tising geography. These two principal
developments meant that during the 1990s
‘critical’ social geography and ‘new’ cultural
geography became increasingly popular areas
of study in the discipline, a trend set to con-
tinue as we enter the new millennium.
6 Editorial
Scope and format
The scope of Social and Cultural Geography is
not limited to any one aspect of the Želd and
we welcome submissions related to any area of
relevant study. Submissions might relate to so-
cial issues, cultural politics, aspects of daily life,
cultural commodities, consumption, identity
and community, historical legacies, and the
production of landscape, for example. We par-
ticularly welcome contributions that are inter-
national and interdisciplinary in scope, and are
contextualized and grounded by social and cul-
tural theory. As a rule, full-length articles in
Social and Cultural Geography will report and
discuss the Žndings of theoretically informed
empirical research. Theoretical ‘thinkpieces’
will be better placed in the specialist geograph-
ical journals that provide a forum for higher-
level conceptual discussions.
Regular sections of Social and Cultural
Geography will include general articles report-
ing the Žndings of empirical research; commen-
taries on particular theoretical concerns,
methodological issues or new directions in the
Želd; book reviews; and abstracts of recently
completed doctoral dissertations. In addition,
we hope to publish reports describing the cur-
rent state-of-play of social and cultural geogra-
phy within different countries, and will publish
special sections encompassing a number of
studies around a particular theme. The Žrst of
these special sections will be in the second issue
where a number of papers focus on the geogra-
phies of race.
Our vision
Our vision is that Social and Cultural
Geography:
1 will be a means for consolidating and devel-
oping the Želds of social and cultural geogra-
phy by reporting relevant theoretically
informed research and by providing a power-
ful mode of communication for the dis-
cussion of issues of importance to social and
cultural geographers and other interested
researchers;
2 will be truly global in scope, publishing arti-
cles and commentaries by researchers from
around the globe. It is hoped that this will
help foster international networks, engage-
ments and critical debate. In order to try and
encourage international authorship we have
been careful to develop a diverse editorial
board and to publish abstracts in both
French and Spanish;
3 will have an interdisciplinary authorship and
readership reecting the important inter-
connections that have been forged between
geographers and researchers across the social
sciences and more broadly;
4 will provide a vibrant forum for commentary
and debate around theory and practice;
5 will give new, recently qualiŽed social and
cultural geographers the opportunity to dis-
cuss their ideas and work ahead of more
substantial publications.
We hope that our vision for Social and Cultural
Geography is apparent in the Žrst issue, which
provides a mix of commentaries and papers
with authors from around the world and at
varying points in their careers.
An invitation
We invite you to use the forum that Social and
Cultural Geography provides and to help us
make the journal a success. If you are engaged
in empirical research concerning any aspect of
the Želd, or you wish to provide a commentary
on a particular issue or an article or commen-
tary we have published (such as those by Peter

Jackson, Linda McDowell or Neil Smith), then
please send us your work and we will consider
it for publication. All submissions are reviewed
by three referees. Notes for contributors are
outlined on the inside, back-cover. We look
forward to receiving a broad and exciting array
of manuscripts.
Finally
An enormous amount of effort has been ex-
pended in producing the Žrst edition of Social
Editorial 7
and Cultural Geography. We would like to
acknowledge the work of authors, referees and
production staff at Taylor & Francis who have
made this exciting new venture possible. We
hope you will share our excitement and will
contribute to future issues of the journal. We
look forward to hearing from you as we work
towards fulŽlling our shared visions for Social
and Cultural Geography.
Brendan Gleeson, Cindi Katz, Nuala Johnson,
Rob Kitchin, Linda Peake, David Sibley and
Gill Valentine