Introduction by the editors
The 21st anniversary of the RGS-IBG Wiley-Blackwell book series in 2022 provides a moment to step back and reflect. In this series of reflections we invited a range of authors and former editors of the series, alongside colleagues at the Society, to provide their insights on the book series.
They addressed both the medium of the book, and the unique contribution of this series in particular. As Steve Hinchcliffe, David Featherstone, and Neil Coe all note, books offer something different, and very valuable, in an increasingly atomised article and Tweet-led academic world. Books provide the space and time to develop arguments and grapple with complexity.
The RGS-IBG book series is particularly valuable because it is backed by an academic society and is therefore protected from the pressures at work in an increasingly commercial book publishing market. This means, as Catherine Souch and Phil Emmerson of the Society note, that there is no pressure on editors to produce mass-market volumes. Rather, we can prioritise the most exciting and ambitious scholarship (not that series books can’t also be page-turners and widely read!). The unusual editorial model with which the series works – soliciting feedback and discussion on each proposal from our diverse editorial board – aims to provide expert, rigorous and constructive support for authors throughout the process. It is great to hear from Kean Fan Lim and Philippa Williams, who both published in the series early in their careers, how working with the book series allowed their ideas grow and strengthen through the publishing process.
Anniversaries are also times for saying thank you, and we would like to record our gratitude here to the Society, Wiley, and previous editors for their constant and iterative efforts in fine-tuning the structures and frameworks to ensure the success of the series. Many of these frameworks still remain critical in our editorial and publishing processes today.
Some of the principles have become even more important over time and guide our work and future plans. Key for us has been to pick up on and develop the ‘internationalisation’ agenda. Chih Yuan has joined as co-editor, the first time we have had a series editor based outside the UK, and his appointment has made a big difference to the number of enquiries and proposals we are receiving from Asia, as well as on our knowledge and ability to draw on a much more diverse set of referees. The editorial board is now more diverse. We have committed to providing editorial and language support for scholars whose first-language may not be English, and the Society have been very supportive of this. We have placed calls for proposals in international forums and explicitly sought ideas and insight from colleagues in Africa, Asia and South America, as well as Europe and North America. There is a lot more to do.
Taking over as editors during the pandemic has had many challenges. Whilst we continue to attract a healthy stream of titles, we must acknowledge that the impacts and experiences of COVID 19 has been profoundly unequal, revealing only too clearly the inbuilt inequalities of contemporary capitalist society as it filters into the academic world. We have tried to negotiate the tricky balance between expressing solidarity with those affected by the pandemic and carrying on the day-to-day work of the series.
In theoretical terms, the pandemic has highlighted again the interconnected nature of ‘human’ and ‘environmental’ domains. It has signalled the importance of volumes in the series attending to these intersections, such as Steve Hinchcliffe, Nick Bingham, John Allen and Simon Carter’s Pathological Lives (2016). We hope to publish further books working across these boundaries – for example around the theme of climate broadly understood – throughout the rest of our tenure as editors. Please contact us if you have ideas for a book, on any topic!
Ruth Craggs and Chih Yuan Woon, Editors of the RGS-IBG book series
Read the reflections from our authors, editors and staff members