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Abstract
There have been a range of protests against the high journal subscription costs, and author processing charges (APCs) levied for publishing in the more prestigious and commercially run journals that are favoured by geographers. But open protests across the sector like the ‘Academic Spring’ of 2012, and challenges to commercial copyright agreements, have been fragmented and less than successful. I renew the argument for ‘socially just’ publishing in geography. For geographers this is not limited to choosing alternative publication venues. It also involves a considerable effort by senior faculty members that are assessing hiring and promotion cases, to read and assess scholarship independently of its place of publication, and to reward the efforts of colleagues that offer their work as a public good. Criteria other than the citation index and prestige of a journal need to be foregrounded. Geographers can also be publishers, and I offer my experience editing the free online Journal of Political Ecology.
Highlights
Publishing articles in academic journals is a mainstay of scholarly activity
It is strongly linked to the individual reputation of authors, their prestige and job and promotion prospects, and it affects the reputations of departments and academic institutions that employ them
A few for-profit corporations have set the terms of mainstream academic publishing for many years
Summary
Publishing articles in academic journals is a mainstay of scholarly activity. It is not done just to disseminate research findings, or to craft an elegant argument. There are at least 65 reputable journals of geography, and many more in related fields like planning and the earth sciences, offering Open Access publishing at zero cost to readers, as well as zero to moderate fees to authors.1 Currently, according to citation and impact metrics, almost all of them have less 'prestige', which means a diminished presence in the eyes of junior and senior geographers.
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