Geographies in/of translation

Abstract

This collective editorial calls for a deeper engagement with translation in geography, arguing that translation is not a peripheral concern or a practical textual question, but a constitutive element of geographical knowledge production. Geographical scholarship is inherently relational, shaped by movements across languages, places, and infrastructures — where, by whom and on which languages research is carried out makes a difference especially in human geography. Yet, translation practices and work often remain invisible, overshadowed by the dominance of English and the infrastructures that sustain linguistic asymmetries. We contend that translation operates in at least three interconnected senses: as a practice of moving between languages, as an embodied and ethical act of interpretation, and as a process embedded in uneven power relations that can both reproduce and challenge these hierarchies. Current publishing systems and citation practices reinforce Anglophone hegemony, marginalizing multilingual scholarship and local knowledges. However, many recent initiatives within and beyond the academy, as well as studies focusing explicitly on these systems and practices, reveal the potential for more inclusive scholarly communication. By foregrounding translation, geographers can reconfigure disciplinary practices, infrastructures, and ethics to foster epistemic justice and pluralism. This involves making visible the translational labor underpinning research, advocating for multilingual publishing, and rethinking citation politics. Building on this, we outline steps for developing further multilingual practices within Fennia, as part of our ‘open practices’ initiative. These include expanding the use of multiple languages in titles, abstracts, and keywords, and exploring technical solutions for publishing full articles under a single Digital Object Identifier (DOI) in multiple languages. These efforts aim to challenge monolingual norms and create infrastructures that support scholarly diversity and acknowledge knowledge production in different national and local contexts, thereby enabling transformative connections across linguistic and geographical boundaries.