25 years on

In the very first issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, our founding editor Nina Glick Schiller (1994, 1) set out the case for a new journal. ‘Cultural politics’, she maintained, ‘has emerged as a means of either maintaining or resisting domination’, and in ways that demanded fresh and dedicated analyses. Spanning geographical registers, methodological approaches, intellectual traditions, and scales of the micro, meso and macro, Identities has some 25 years later established itself as an interdisciplinary space for these necessary analyses. The journal’s interdisciplinarity is anchored in a broadly conceived sociological ontology, namely a concern with the nature of the ‘social’ that is shared and populated by anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, social policy, cultural geography, political science and social psychology. So while much has changed in the intervening years, the idea of ‘identity’ in Identities continues to owe much to the journal’s provenance. In the late Stuart Hall’s (1992, 275–6) terms, the journal remains focused on the ways in which identity ‘bridges the gap between the “inside” and the “outside” – between the personal and the public worlds’, a sentiment most recently explored in our anniversary lecture by Gary Young (2018) on ‘The politics of identity: from potential to pitfalls, and symbols to substance’. Over this period, the work of the journal has relied on the extraordinary contribution of authors, reviewers, editorial board members, journal administrators and editors. In the last five years Claire Alexander, has driven this task with enormous success, and alongside Brett St Louis, Raminder Kaur and Hazel Burke she hands over a very accomplished journal that ‘ranks’ in industry terms amongst the best in cognate areas, and which is intellectually as fruitful as any currently publishing. The new team will build on this tradition and bring its own distinctive qualities to Identities. It includes new Associate Editors Jean Beaman who is a sociologist and ethnographer at Purdue University, and whose research centers on questions of how marginalized groups understand their social locations. Emma Hill from Edinburgh University whose work focuses on migration, race, gender, decolonisation and Somali communities. Gëzim Krasniqi from Edinburgh University who has a broad interdisciplinary interest in nationalism, identity, ethnic conflict, citizenship and contested states, often with empirical focus on South East Europe. Ana Solano-Campos at the University of Massachusetts-Boston who researches sociolinguistics and education in linguistically diverse and transnational school contexts. Aaron Winter of the University of East London who has worked on the far-right, racism, critical approaches to terrorism studies and hate crime, and Sophia Woodman of Edinburgh University who focuses on citizenship, human rights and social movements in contemporary China. Lastly, I take up the role of Editor and bring to bear my interests in the study of race, identity and citizenship. During our tenure Identities will continue to honour its intellectual traditions as it looks forward to contemporary and future debates.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.