Editorial: Changes, then and now

I started thinking about what I would write in my first editorial as Managing Editor of Landscape Research in September 2018, while standing in the Hokusai Museum in Obuse, Japan, which celebrates the life and work of Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. As many readers will know, Hokusai – often referred to as the “Old Man Mad About Painting” – spent a great deal of time in his later life contemplating Mount Fuji and its surroundings – in different seasons and from different vantage points. This contemplation famously culminated in the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which Hokusai crafted between 1826 and 1833. Each woodblock print in the series captures the iconic triangular shape of Mount Fuji in some way; sometimes it is prominent and in full profile, while at other times it is glimpsed in the distance, only just inching into view. In each scene, Mount Fuji shares the frame with other things, places and people: a tea plantation, bridges, lightning, farm workers, horses, boats, a water-wheel, kites, a lake, temples, sight-seers, a tea-house, snow, islands, pilgrims, carpenters, cranes, rice fields, a cooper and the wind. Taken together, the thirty-six prints offer a fairly reasonable visual articulation of the conventional meaning of ‘landscape’.

Perhaps the most famous print of the set is Kanagawa oki name ura, or the ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’, in which a dominant deep blue wave with frothing white crests dwarfs the peak of Mount Fuji, hunkering down in the distance. As Christine Guth (2015) points out in her extensive explorations of the icon, it is an image that is extremely well-known yet is without static meaning, much like Mount Fuji itself. It has been replicated and reactivated in many different ways since its creation in the nineteenth century; for example, in the clothing company Quicksilver’s logo and in more recent works of art such as Bonnie Monteleone’s travelling exhibition, ‘What Comes Around, Goes Around’, which was made from waste plucked from the ocean. In the latter, the power of the great wave is smothered by layers of human-produced plastic detritus, bringing about what Hudson (2017: 10) would term ‘an uncanny combination of the natural and the artificial that makes it impossible to disentangle the two’. To this extent, ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’ remains active in creating meaning – it is susceptible to change − and is today associated with many complex issues and debates that resonate with articulations of ‘landscape’, such as pollution, disaster and plastification. Moreover, it has for some become a potent symbol of a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene, which, as Krauβ argues, ‘highlights the relational aspects between humans and their environment’ (Krauβ 2018: 1030; see also Helmreich 2015; Probyn 2018).

I was still contemplating Hokusai’s “Great Wave” in the Anthropocene a couple of months later when I returned, in November, to the Langtang Valley in Nepal. I had been in the valley when a major earthquake struck the area in 2015, at which time the village of Langtang, along with others in the valley, was completely destroyed by a succession of landslides and avalanches that killed more than 600 residents and visitors. I was lucky to survive. At the time of the main tremor I was on a trekking trail roughly halfway between Langtang and the town of Syabru Besi, which lies at the mouth of the valley. In the space of just over a minute and a half, everything changed: a landscape of breathtaking beauty was disfigured by rock, ice, mud and the cloying scent of fear. My feelings upon returning were – among other things – connected to a knowing and conscious desire to attend to a sense of vulnerability, disorientation and loss. I will skip over most of the detail of that visit here except to say that if Hokusai’s “Great Wave” is now a repurposed symbol of crisis, hazard and disaster, then the utterly dessimated landscape of Langtang redoubled its efforts: it was the reality of the Anthropocene writ large; a line emphatically drawn under the notion of a global environmental crisis. This is not to suggest ‘that geophysics is now entirely artificial or that humanity is in control of plate tectonics, earthquakes or volcanoes’, as Dalby (2015: 240) has argued, but it does mean ‘that humanity is an increasingly large player in how the future of the biosphere is configured’ (Dalby 2015: 241).

Now, as I sit down to write this editorial a month later, I find myself reflecting on other landscapes that speak eloquently about the way places can be reconfigured over time, sometimes in ways that are so momentous that they are permanently transformed, along with the relationships that exist between them, related societies and their pasts. The industrial revolution and its associated dislocations is one such example; colonialism and its aftermath is another. There are many processes that produce similar results, including urbanization, climate change, disasters (both natural and otherwise), changes in agricultural practice, changes in land ownership and, most recently, the mass migrations of people fleeing war and civil conflict. In fact, any large-scale development or event that results in the disconnection of a group or community from a place that has cultural significance to them may be counted as part of this phenomenon (Watson and Waterton 2015). Such examples speak of the enormity of the issues that confront us, issues that present those of us working in an area we might loosely term ‘Landscape Studies’ with an incredibly varied and important collection of challenges and responsibilities. Remarkably, many of them are not new. Peter Howard’s editorial in 1990, for example, spoke of climate change and greenhouse emissions, and Maggie Roe underscored the urgency of sustainability in 2009. So, while dialogue is taking place, it is clear that there is much more work for us to do.

*****

Like the Landscape Research Group (henceforth LRG) that owns this journal, Landscape Research is concerned with all types of landscapes. Under the leadership of a succession of passionate and far-sighted editors, it is now widely regarded as a high-quality journal that is also a vivid illustration of the diversity of ways landscapes can be studied and understood. Well into its third decade of production − having reached the threshold of a 20-year anniversary in 2016 – it should come as no surprise that I am using this editorial to announce some changes. Change, after all, is both inevitable and necessary in order to sustain a rigorous process of management and peer-review, especially for a journal that has been in operation for such a considerable period of time. Across the past few years, the composition of the Editorial Team has undergone some minor reconfigurations, though its overarching architecture has remained the same. The start of 2019, however, signalled a handful of far bigger changes. Perhaps the most significant for the journal is that Professor Anna Jorgensen’s (University of Sheffield) tenure as Managing Editor came to an end in December 2018. Anna has vacated some rather large shoes and is a difficult act to follow. The gap she has left is a daunting one given her insight, experience and standing, and I eye it with some caution (and excitement) as I transition from Associate to Managing Editor. Given this, my editorial approach, for the first year at least, will be a straightforward one: Anna and the LRG have given me their confidence and so I will do my best to continue on in a similar vein to our previous editors, attracting and publishing first-rate landscape research. Fortunately, I have a long history of collaboration with the LRG and the journal itself. Indeed, it has been just over a decade since I first joined forces with the LRG. It has been a real privilege to serve as a Board Member across that timeframe and assist with the LRG’s efforts to progress its longstanding ambitions to champion and promote “greater understanding of landscape” and “advance research”¹. I look forward to pressing forward with those ambitions in my new role.

In addition to a change in Managing Editor, 2019 brings a second major change: the relocation of the journal’s ‘home’ from the UK to Sydney, Australia. This is significant, as it is the first time the journal has been located outside the European context and signals our continued openness to contributions from diverse geographical locations. Finally, 2019 saw the addition of a new role in the overarching editorial framework: that of a Pre-Editor. That role will be filled by Dr Emily Burns (Western Sydney University), who will assist primarily with post-submission/pre-review administration in ways that help us to close the gap in the time between submission and reaching a decision. These are not the only changes that have been made, of course. As of this Issue, Anna will transition into the crucial role of Consulting Editor; at the same time, Maggie Roe (University of Newcastle, UK) will move out of the role of Consulting Editor and into that of Associate Editor. With both Anna’s and Maggie’s counsel and support, and their continued close involvement with the journal’s management, we can be assured of a steady period of transition and continued growth. As past Managing Editors, they have each breathed new life into the journal, which is a trend I hope will continue. By way of example, over the past five years Anna has worked to: ensure a seamless transition from 6 to 8 issues per year; raise the journal’s profile, increasing its maturity with the introduction of a Call for Papers Reviewing Research on nominated themes in 2017; improve its Impact Factor to 1.198; fine-tune the appearance of the printed cover; and create a more inclusive process for the editing of special issues, with guest editors taking a more active role in the process.

In 2018, the Editorial Team also saw the addition of Dr Bo Yang (University of Arizona, USA), who was confirmed as an Assistant Editor, as well as Professor Vanessa Castan Broto (University of Sheffield, UK) and Dr Mark Eischeid (University of Oregon, USA) who were invited to join the Team later in the year. They will replace Professor Ken Taylor (Australian National University) and Dr Tom Mels (Uppsala University, Sweden), both of whom have worked with the journal for a considerable period of time and have recently retired from their roles as Associate Editors. We are grateful for their extensive knowledge and contributions. Dr Vera Vicenzotti (SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden) will continue in her role as Associate Editor, as will Assistant Editors Dr Federica Larcher (University of Turin, Italy) and Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito (Newcastle University, UK). Dr Thomas Oles (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden) will continue as Book Reviews Editor and Crista Walshaw will, thankfully, remain in the role of Editorial Assistant, but will relocate her affiliation from the University of Sheffield to Western Sydney University. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those in the above list for their contributions and wonderful support. Crista, in particular, deserves enormous recognition for all the work she does with and for the journal.

I would also like to use this editorial as an opportunity to thank our numerous reviewers, who are incredibly generous in providing detailed feedback that is used by authors to constructively revise and amend their submissions for publication. The journal could not survive without their goodwill, input and support, all unpaid, yet their efforts are rarely acknowledged. As other journal editors will no doubt agree, it is getting increasingly difficult to solicit this level of input, for at least two reasons: one, is the continued increase in the number submissions that journals receive; and the second is a concomitant decrease in the time available to scholars to provide thorough reviews as they struggle under the burden of intense administrative workloads, demands to excel in multiple roles and the relentless pressures of what David Beer (2016) refers to as ‘metric power’ or a ‘metric tide’ (those adopting such phrases point to world rankings, league tables, research assessments and teaching frameworks as examples of metric domination within universities; see Feldman and Sandoval 2016). Whatever the cause, those of us on the Editorial Team will endeavour to ensure the continuation of a solid peer-review process (with promises to take action should we become too complicit to the metric tide).

Entering a new year is a good time to reflect, not only on what has been but what is to come. A suite of strong articles was published across the eight issues produced in 2018, coming from a mix of early career and well-established researchers, and drawing from an array of disciplines and fields of research, such as architecture, conservation studies, design, anthropology, heritage studies, natural resource management, education, climatology, historical geography, ecology and philosophy. Five of those issues were general in nature and three were dedicated to particular themes. The first, Issue 2, focused on “Arts, Knowledge and Northern Landscapes”, and was followed shortly thereafter (Issue 4) by a special issue that explored the “Governance of Energy Landscapes: Exploring Recent Developments and Perspectives”. The final special issue was published in our final issue of 2018, just a few weeks ago, and addressed the issue of “Pastoral Landscapes Caught Between Abandonment, Rewilding and Agro-Environmental Management: Is There an Alternative Future?”. As guest editors of that issue, Werner Krauβ and Kenneth R. Olwig curated an explicitly future-orientated collection that explores marginal pastoral landscapes in the context of the Anthropocene, caught, as the editors argue, “between abandonment, rewilding and agro-environmental management” (p. 1020). Given my opening reflections, it feels like a very fitting themed issue to act as the threshold between Managing Editors.

Our plans for 2019 are similar and will see the inclusion of at least two special issues among the eight that will be produced across the year. With each, we will continue with our promise to publish work that is cross-disciplinary and innovative. Where possible and at the same time, I hope we will also find ways to critically and thoughtfully address in our articles some of the pressing debates that challenge wider society. From where I sit in the Australian context, such debates revolve around issues such as climate change, the introduction of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, housing affordability, intensifying fires, floods and drought, the continued challenges of Eurocentrism, immigration and casual racism. In addition to encouraging submissions that tackle these pressing issues, I also hope that Landscape Research, as a scholarly publication, can find ways to speak up about some of the issues we have all seen afflict academia in recent times, such as cuts to funding, cuts to pensions, institutional ‘re-shuffles’, redundancies, precarious contracts, political interference in research grant outcomes and attempts to discredit particular fields of research (i.e. the ‘Grievance Studies’ hoax). As a starting point, I aim to invite a more diverse range of thinkers onto the Editorial Board and at the same time will work to prepare strategies that can help diversify our authorship. On this latter point, over the past year Landscape Research has featured articles written by scholars and professionals at many different stages of their career, and it is proving to be a supportive outlet for those just starting to ‘cut their teeth’ in the world of scholarship. But the majority of those who publish in the journal are academics based in UK and European universities (approximately 70%), followed by those located in the United States (approximately 5%). Looking forward, I hope we can do more as a journal to publish a thicker seam of work by those working outside of Anglophone academia.

Once again, I thank the LRG and the journal’s Editorial Team for providing me with this opportunity to contribute to such an exciting and well-regarded academic journal. I look forward to the coming five years as Managing Editor, during which time I will work with, and undoubtedly learn from, the Editorial Team and wider Editorial Board to understand what works well for the journal, what can be improved and how best to make changes happen.

Notes

1. Taken from the ‘About the Landscape Research Group’ page of the LRG website, accessed 4 December 2018.