A Radical Journal of Geography

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Antipode publishes innovative papers that push at the boundaries of radical geographical thinking. Papers in the journal are rigorous and substantive in theoretical and empirical terms. Authors are encouraged to critique and challenge settled orthodoxies, while engaging the context of intellectual traditions and their particular trajectories. Papers should put new research or critical analyses to work to contribute to strengthening a Left politics broadly defined. This includes, but is not limited to, attention to how politics of class, gender, race, colonialism, sexuality, ability are a core part of radical theory and politics.

Antipode’s Editorial Collective welcomes submissions from all places, including the global South and/or from those traditionally marginalised in the academy (historically under-represented groups, regions, countries and institutions). We’re also open to work rooted in a range of intellectual and political traditions, as well as work that crosses the boundaries between them. Geography is an undisciplined discipline, and Antipode seeks to represent its full breadth.

If you are wondering whether to send your paper to Antipode or preparing to send it, please see our recent Editorial, “Radical Geography for a Resurgent Left”, and consider the following:

1. Antipode seeks papers that are innovative and push at the boundaries of radical geographical thinking. If you think your paper does that, make sure that it is clear how it does so. That is, clarify what important debates and questions your paper addresses. Are your findings (as outlined in the manuscript) related to broader issues and concerns in radical politics, broadly defined?

2. Ideally, articles published in Antipode are politically-engaged, timely, and passionate, and often combine critical theoretical interventions and empirical rigor. Does your manuscript do so? How? We value empirical rigor that emerges from politically-engaged research and seeks to transform or intervene in how a given problematic is understood (as opposed to empirical rigor as an end in itself or presented primarily as findings from a research grant).

3. Do you adequately cite and engage scholarship (within Geography and beyond, published in Antipode and/or elsewhere) that is relevant to your argument? Of course, it is seldom possible to cite all relevant literature. Yet articles must go beyond literature reviews to contribute significantly to some set of debates in one or more subfields of geographical research (broadly defined). Also, we are committed to the objective of citational reflexivity, and urge authors to engage with and do justice to those voices too often invisibilized, unacknowledged, or underrepresented in the key debates to which Antipode seeks to contribute.

4. Is your paper attentive to and does it flesh out the classed, gendered, raced, sexed, and other elements of its argument as relevant? This attention means moving beyond descriptions of oppression or axes and intersections of difference (sexuality, race, gender, class, ability, colonialism, to name a few) to provide new or challenging analyses of “difference” in relation to location, space, place, etc. How do such analyses and reflections extend radical geographic approaches?

5. Organization and presentation matter. Is your argument clearly and logically laid out for the reader, and developed throughout the manuscript? Do you adequately support and substantiate the manuscript’s claims? Is your argument and the evidence presented logically organized?

6. All editors, reviewers and readers value clear prose. Try to glance at your manuscript with fresh eyes (or get someone else to do it) to assess whether it is clearly written, well-organized, and understandable to readers outside of your sub-field. We have an international, English-reading audience; please define terms, places, groups, political parties, etc. accordingly.

7. Pay attention to the journal’s submission guidelines. Antipode articles are limited to 9,500 words inclusive of endnotes and references. Tables and figures use page space, too; please bear this in mind if your paper is on the long side.

Papers submitted to Antipode should not be published, in press, or submitted elsewhere. Submitting authors should also ensure that all individuals identified as authors actually contributed to the manuscript, that all individuals who contributed are included, and that the manuscript is an original work (indicating where it overlaps significantly with their previously published work).

Cover letters are optional, but we ask all authors to explain why you have chosen to submit your paper to Antipode and how your paper reflects the journal’s values and parameters. In no more than 300 words, please outline what your paper does and why it matters, what conversations ongoing in the journal it is contributing to/engaging with, and so on.

8. Note that we publish a variety of formats. In addition to papers, Antipode also publishes special issues and symposia, and a Book Series. We also publish Interventions and Reviews on the journal’s companion website, AntipodeOnline.org (on which see below).

Marion Werner, Kiran Asher, Laura Barraclough, David Featherstone,
Alex Loftus, Stefan Ouma and Andy Kent
The Antipode Editorial Collective
August 2020

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As well as papers, Antipode publishes special issues and symposia and a book series. We also publish interventions and reviews here on AntipodeFoundation.org

Translation and Outreach

The Antipode Foundation is committed to a radical praxis of internationalism. Our programmes – including Right to the Discipline grants, Scholar-Activist Project Awards, and International Workshop Awards – explicitly support activities that push the boundaries of radical geography in a variety of ways. Together with our Institute for the Geographies of Justice and our sponsored lectures in the global South (e.g. https://antipodeonline.org/2019/08/29/lecture-series-2019/), we seek to amplify the work of scholars and activists doing radical geographies in contexts, forms, and outputs that are often unrecognised in mainstream, Anglo-centered scholarly outlets. Our Translation and Outreach programme is part of this aim.

To facilitate engagement with non-Anglo scholarship – traversing some of the barriers between language communities, enabling hitherto under-represented groups, regions, countries and institutions to enrich conversations and debates in Antipode, and opening all of the Foundation’s activities to the widest possible group of beneficiaries – the Antipode Editorial Collective seeks proposals from authors, translators and editors for translation and outreach in the following categories:

1. Formative Essays in Radical Geography (broadly defined), not available in English

  • Whether new or already published, we’re looking for important papers that have contributed to theory and/or had implications for praxis at a certain time. Papers are handled in much the same way as English essays; the advice of the International Advisory Board and other expert referees is sought, revisions are requested where necessary, and if they are sufficient the Editorial Collective approaches the Foundation with a request for funds. Its trustees will only approve the translation of essays that have been subject to proper peer review and accepted by the Editorial Collective. Translated papers are published with translator’s/editor’s notes where necessary; these are intended to “situate” them, outlining their meaning and significance to the time and place in which they were originally published, and explaining any keywords less well known to Anglophone readers. In 2020, for example, we published a compendium of two essays by Beatriz Nascimento, translated by Christen Smith, Archie Davies and Bethânia Gomes (see https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12690).

2. Key Interventions, not available in English

  • Proposals for texts that mobilise radical geography towards social justice ends by casting light on current matters of concern. Produced by scholars and/or activists, and previously published online in movement literature or other non-standard venues, these texts would be handled like our other online interventions. The Editorial Collective would review the proposal and seek advice from the International Advisory Board. If the Collective recommends publication, it will seek funds from the Foundation for translation. Translated interventions would be published online with a translator’s/editor’s note where necessary.

3. Book Reviews, of books not available in English

  • Antipode benefits from its considerable online platform to offer substantive book reviews. We seek proposals for reviews in English of non-English books as a modest step towards disseminating non-Anglo scholarship.

Proposals for translations of essays and interventions, plus reviews of non-English books, should be sent to Andy Kent.

Special Issues and Symposia

Antipode occasionally publishes special issues and symposia. The Editorial Collective seeks papers that both individually and collectively make a significant contribution to the advancement of radical/critical geography, whether by pushing debates forward in novel ways or by taking discussions in new directions. We look for papers that speak to ongoing conversations in the field, to be sure, but as representatives of an undisciplined discipline we also look for papers that stray beyond established borders (of all kinds) and that think creatively about the journal’s lines of descent and possible futures. And a “symposium”, of course, is a party, so we look for papers that are not only lively and well-presented but also engaging – cross-referenced papers, deeply in dialogue, meaningfully connecting with each other, and holding together as a collection to form something more than the sum of its parts. A strong introduction to a special issue or symposium takes on these provocations in bold and compelling ways.

The Editorial Collective meets twice a year, in June and November, to consider proposals. These should explain the collection as a whole and its “fit” with Antipode (in no more than 1,500 words), and should also include biographical sketches and 150-word abstracts from authors. Symposia consist of around seven essays, each 9,500 words (inclusive of endnotes, references, tables and figures), and a guest-editor’s introduction.

Proposals should be e-mailed to Andy Kent ([email protected]) before the end of May and October, and decisions will made before the end of June and November. If you have a question, please get in touch with Andy.

The Antipode Book Series

The Antipode Book Series publishes books which engage and strengthen radical geographical ideas and Left politics broadly defined by combining critical theoretical interventions and empirical rigour. While we are open to different forms of substantive, innovative and imaginative scholarship, we are particularly keen to publish monographs, which develop their argument in sustained and situated ways. While the series is rooted in geography and transnational in scope, it is neither limited to disciplinary scholarship nor does it privilege particular geographical contexts. Rather, we are interested in a broad spectrum of politically-engaged scholarship that is in conversation with critical debates across fields, and that might speak to issues posed by contemporary political conjunctures. We particularly welcome submissions from authors from the global South and from backgrounds traditionally under-represented in the academy.

We aim to publish books that:

  • Advance core theoretical ideas and arguments in ways that are attentive to intellectual traditions and their particular trajectories;
  • Engage with and do justice to those voices too often invisibilised, unacknowledged, or under-represented in the key debates to which authors seek to contribute;
  • Are accessible and written in lively prose that will appeal to diverse audiences;
  • Speak to and take forward Left politics and engagement in situated ways;
  • Provide challenging analyses of “difference” (sexuality, race, gender, class, ability, colonialism, to name a few) in relation to location, space, place, and that use such analyses to extend radical geographic approaches.

If you have an idea for an Antipode book, whether it is a monograph or an edited collection, please contact the Book Series Editors who are happy to discuss ideas for potential book proposals. A proposal should consist of:

  • An introduction that clearly outlines the book’s main argument and core contribution, and that situates and contextualises its theoretical and analytical approach in relation to the broader intellectual traditions and the particular trajectories of the project;
  • An annotated Table of Contents with a few paragraphs describing each chapter;
  • A schedule for completion;
  • A clear sense of how the proposed book aligns with complementary titles and relates to and moves forward the broader Antipode project.

Proposals will be reviewed by the editors and two anonymous referees.

Book Series Editors: Kiran Asher (University of Massachusetts) and David Featherstone (University of Glasgow)

Interventions

The Interventions section of Antipode will now, with a few exceptions, be online. The strength of Interventions consists in part in their attitude and directness: they’re timely and pressing, and they’re often springboards for ongoing discussions. The relationship between geography and social theory and “live” events, current affairs, etc. warrant thoughtful yet expeditious commentaries. However, publication can be a slow process: Antipode appears just five times a year, and rising numbers of submissions coupled with a limited page budget means the impact of Interventions can be undermined by a wait in the publication queue. Migrating Interventions online will open up the possibility of thinking, writing and sharing ideas, and inciting conversation, in response to events as they unfold.

We welcome short (about 1,500-word), perhaps polemical, essays that among other things cast a radical geographer’s eye over contemporary matters of concern or report on strategies for change and forms of organisation producing a more socially just and radically democratic life. We also welcome collections of essays that speak to each other in productive ways. Of course, you will continue to see some Interventions, of a more “reflective” kind, in the pages of Antipode – commenting on the state of radical practice and theory, or introducing debate and disagreement around politically contentious issues of the Left – but AntipodeFoundation.org will showcase some of the best and most provocative radical geographical writing available today.

If you’ve an idea for an intervention, please get in touch with Andy Kent ([email protected]).

Reviews

All Antipode book reviews are now freely available from our online repository, Wiley Online Library. While this digital archive will remain in place, since January 2013 we’ve no longer been publishing book reviews in the journal; all new book reviews appear exclusively on AntipodeFoundation.org. This has allowed us to feature not only more reviews, but also more substantive reviews (in the style, say, of the London Review of Books), more quickly. The makeover has also transformed the book reviews section into a more capacious “Book reviews, etc.” section, that may now feature, in addition to book reviews, reviews of film and music, grey literature, and political pamphlets – in fact, any texts that have something to say to the radical geographic imagination.

Please see our guidelines and get in touch with Andy Kent ([email protected]) with ideas for reviews.

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If you would like to contribute something to Antipode, please see our author guidelines. Papers can be submitted online here.

Antipode is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics; COPE provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics, including how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

For something on the history of the journal, see our past editors’ reflections and the more recent editorials listed below. For more on its present condition, see our introduction to Keywords in Radical Geography: Antipode at 50, our free-to-download book celebrating Antipode’s 50th anniversary.

Radical Geography for a Resurgent Left (2020)

Neil Smith’s Long Revolutionary Imperative (2017)

What Does it Mean to Win? On Keeping Antipode‘s Radical Spirit Alive (2013)

Announcing the Antipode Foundation (2012)

Antipode in an Antithetical Era (2011)

The Point Is To Change It (2010)

The Power of Numbers (2009)

Home Truths (2005)

Progress or Retreat? Antipode and the Radical Geographical Project (2002)

Geography and its Discontents (2000)