Some reflections on the ‘problematic’ dominance of ‘Web of Science’ journals in academic human geography

Abstract

This Observation discusses two problematic features of some of the most commonly voiced critiques against the 'Web of Science' (WoS) in academic human geography.First, most critical appraisals of the WoS tend to understate the diversity of the human geography research indexed in this database.Second, the portraying of academic geographers as innocent victims in this context conveniently disguises their own complicity.In a recent contribution to this journal, Schuermans et al. (2010) highlight the tendency of Belgian human geographers to publish in English language journals listed in the 'Web of Science' (WoS).The merit of their paper and a number of other recent contributions on this topic can undoubtedly be traced back to the authors' rigorous empirical framework (see also Paasi, 2005): rather than merely assuming that publication practices have in recent years shifted towards WoS journals, their longitudinal analysis of the publication output of academic geographers provides hard evidence for this shift.It is clear that most contributions highlighting the increased/increasing WoS dominance in the publication strategies of human geographers assume that this is a problematic trend.Although the debate on the problems associated with a WoS-dominated publication landscape is wideranging and variegated, it seems fair to state that the most commonly addressed themes -as

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