Abstract
International collaboration in science in general continues to grow and the discipline of Geography is increasingly becoming internationalized. Although there are many benefits to internationalism and, indeed, it is essential if we are to address major global challenges, there is debate as to whether or not existing power relations contribute to cementing unevenness and inequity among the global community of geographers. This is reflected in academic publication practices which clearly advantage particular communities over others. In this essay, I offer some thoughts on the nature of internationalism and its influence on representation in the global geographical community. Important constraints to greater inclusivity are highlighted and the role of the International Geographical Union in potentially offsetting some of the apparent inequities is discussed. The paper concludes with some thoughts as to what is needed if internationalism is to help reduce rather than accentuate such imbalances.
Highlights
Given my recent election as President of the International Union it seems both timely and pertinent to offer some reflections on the evolving nature of the international geographical community and, in particular, how internationalism has shaped and continues to influence academic geography
Science itself has become progressively globalized through collaboration (Royal Society, 2011) and a lively debate has emerged in academic geography around the nature of multi- disciplinary, multi-institutional and multi-national research networks (Derudder & Liu, 2016)
Given the limitation that the Web of Science (WoS) database is known to be strongly biased towards Anglo-American journals and English-language publications, the results of the analysis provide fascinating insights as to how the nature of international collaboration has evolved between 2000 and 2015
Summary
Given my recent election as President of the International Union it seems both timely and pertinent to offer some reflections on the evolving nature of the international geographical community and, in particular, how internationalism has shaped and continues to influence academic geography. Academic geographers ply their trade within their own institutional, regional and national contexts. I consider emerging trends in scientific collaboration and publications, and explore the role of the International Geographical Union (IGU) in promoting internationalism of our discipline, hopefully in a form that reduces rather than cements inequities in the production and accessibility of geographical research outputs. The analysis (Gui et al, 2019) reveals overall marked growth in the number of countries engaging in international collaboration; the number of linkages between countries almost tripled during the fifteen years under consideration
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