Are international journals of human geography really international?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to research the extent to which ‘international journals’ of human geography are really international. The analysis is based on the affiliation data (work centre) of the authors of articles and of members of editorial boards of a group of international journals; the results so obtained are related to the impact factors of these journals. The indicators used show that human geography journals in general have still not attained a high degree of internationalization. This may be interpreted as a sign of fragmentation within the discipline: human geographers do not constitute a proper international scientific community or, rather, a global community that makes use of certain common media of expression (international journals) but are fragmented into national or regional (linguistic) communities.