‘In the critical department’: refreshing the Scottish Geographical Journal

Following the latest hand-over in the ‘slow-motion geographical relay race’ (Clayton & Warren, 2016, p. 183) that is the editorship of the Scottish Geographical Journal, the ‘baton’ has now been passed from St Andrews – specifically from Dan Clayton and Charles Warren – to a new Editorial Team based in Glasgow (in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences). This new team spans four of us, combining expertise across human geography (Emma Laurie, Chris Philo) and physical geography (Martin Hurst, Rhian Thomas), and with a variety of cross-disciplinary linkages across to the earth sciences, geospatial sciences, social sciences and humanities. Our capacities will be extended by reaching out to a revivified Editorial Board, currently being updated with renewed responsibilities, and of course by seeking the generous assistance of reviewers spread globally and across (and beyond) academia. We wish to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of our predecessors, Dan and Charles (St Andrews: 2016–2021 [Clayton & Warren, 2016]), and before them Tim Mighall and Lorna Philip (Aberdeen: 2009–2016 [Philip & Mighall, 2009]), Jim Hansom and Joanne Sharp (Glasgow: 2005–2008 [Hansom et al., 2006]), and Alison McCleery (Napier: 1999–2004 [McCleery, 1999]). These have been the editors during the period when the Scottish Geographical Magazine (SGM) became renamed as the Scottish Geographical Journal (SGJ), although it is interesting that even in the SGM’s founding year of 1885 – as in the epigraph above – it was already on occasion being termed a ‘Journal’. The deeper implications of the epigraph will be inspected below, in the context of briefly inspecting the journal’s history and drawing out certain ‘lessons’ for us, going forward, as the new editors. More importantly perhaps, we will conclude this editorial with a statement of how we intend to ‘refresh’ the journal, including various initiatives for introducing greater flexibility into the normal expectations of what and how an academic journal will publish. That said, we know that we are building on the accomplishments and indeed visions of our predecessors from 1885 onwards, thereby sitting ‘on the shoulders of giants’, and we are fully aware that in some instances we are reworking ideas and innovations that have been attempted previously.