Geographical Research: Retrospect and Prospect

Geographical Research (GR), or Australian Geographical Studies as it was then, began publication in 1963, 1 year after one of us (BLF) finished secondary school. Like GR, my high school class is also having a 50 year celebration and reunion. I studied Geography at that time but I had to push my way into it. At the start of our final 2 years leading up to the Senior Public Examination, the university matriculation test in Queensland, we each had to be interviewed by the deputy principal to select our subjects. I walked into his office and he greeted me with ‘Ah, Finlayson, two maths, two sciences and two languages’. I replied that I actually wanted to study history and geography. He was incredulous, only girls took history and geography. I persisted and he eventually gave in.

The next year, I studied first year geography at the University of Queensland. The professor of geography was male as were all the lecturing staff except one. Women were better represented in the casual part-time jobs as tutors. Women were also the majority in this first year class. Somewhere in this process, between the female-dominated school and university classes, and the male-dominated academic staff, a gender reversal was occurring.

Ann Marshall had worked closely with Griffith Taylor, whose sister Dorothy had been the first woman geography lecturer in Australia, at the University of Sydney. Dorothy was appointed a lecturer in Sydney on her brother's departure for North America in 1928. The new department head, James Macdonald Holmes, terminated her appointment in 1931 alleging, though never proving, that she had stolen books from the department library (Strange and Bashford, 2008).

Among the 23 editors who have steered GR over the past 50 years, only two were women, Elspeth Young (1988–1992) and Hilary Winchester (1998–2000). There was not a female editor in the first 35 years of the journal and there has not been a female editor for the past 12 years. In its 50 year life, the journal has had women editors for only 5 years. Editorship is voluntary, of course, so does this reflect a reluctance on the part of women geographers to take on this role, or have they not been encouraged and given the opportunity? The editorial board of GR also suffers from a significant gender imbalance, only five of the 15 Australian board members are women and four of the 12 international board members are women. The selection process for editorial board members may have been biased by the male dominance of the editorial team.

So, on gender issues, geography started badly though this probably reflected the state of affairs in the community more generally. We, as male physical geographers, are reluctant to delve too deeply into this debate. …

In volume 50, there are 23 themed papers. Four of them have single authors who are women, two multi-authored papers have a woman as first named author, and there are six women as second/third authors. Of the 38 authors on these papers, 13 are women. Given that most of these authors are senior members of the profession, the bias towards males may simply reflect the past situation. In this particular issue, there are four women authors from a total of nine, including, notably, Louise Johnson with a paper entitled Feminist Geography 30 years on – They came, they saw but did they conquer?

Johnson's assessment is that Feminist Geography has lost its momentum 30 years on from its beginnings and she details five reasons for this. It is usual for research themes to vary through time, as happens in all disciplines. More worrying is that she shows that the historic inequality within the discipline has been lessened a bit but is still unacceptably high. Johnson's call for a revitalisation of the Feminist agenda in Geography is then timely but is unlikely, of itself, to translate into more gender equity in the discipline. That will require more positive action.

Looking back at the last three issues of the 50th volume of GR, we have seen a broad representation of Australian geography, much of which is not undertaken in Australia. In the last issue of the 50th volume, we present a series of papers that are thematically disparate (although some are related) but nevertheless represent Geography through their diversity of both Human and Physical Geography and various sub-disciplines. This breadth of view is one of the strong points of Geography as a discipline.

Nick Harvey, Beverley Clarke, and Melissa Nursey-Bray discuss coastal management and climate change, noting how climate change has become the driver for action on coastal management at all three levels of government. The implication from their assessment is that principles of sustainable use and integrated management were themselves unsuccessful imperatives! Certainly, the clarion call for a nationally integrated approach continues to fall on deaf (State government) ears 30 years since it was first made.

Part of planning for climate change impacts on coasts is dealing with uncertainty and increased hazard risk. Jon Nott's reconstruction of large cyclone recurrence intervals on the Queensland coast highlights the geographer's breadth of view that we mentioned earlier. Here, he brings together the analysis of ancient sedimentary sequences with contemporary risk assessment to provide an outcome in terms of understanding the true risk level that would not otherwise be available.

George Curry and Gina Koczberski take us to New Britain where they explore different ways of valuing labour and the problems encountered in developing countries when western concepts of labour value are applied in theory and practice. Philip Hirsch also discusses agrarian issues in developing countries and explains changes over the past 30 years that have seen Geographers taking a more prominent role through ‘a multiscale and contextualised approach in which environment, globalisation, migration, territorial expansion, spatial inequality, and other key geographical themes have framed explorations of agrarian change’.

An issue that has been much debated among geographers in Australia is taken up by Brian Lees. As he correctly points out, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have generally failed to attract geographers, other than as users of its facilities in their research. In this way, Australian geography differs from what has happened in the discipline elsewhere, particularly North America, though Lees argues that it is territory we should still strive to occupy.

As editors, we have enjoyed immensely the privilege of bringing together the themed sections celebrating the 50th volume of GR. We thank both contributors and reviewers for making this landmark volume possible. We should also acknowledge all those researchers and reviewers who have contributed over the last 50 years. The support of both authors and reviewers to the current volume and the research presented within bodes well for the next 50 years of GR in Australia. What we need now is a change in the composition of the editorial team. Should we mandate for the inclusion of women editors?