A World Beyond Web of Science: AGORA Magazine's 35 Years in Dutch-Language Human Geography

Abstract

Understanding human geography's development requires looking beyond high-profile academic journals. Alternative publication circuits are spaces of experimentation and play an important role in the discipline's intergenerational reproduction. This paper narrates the 35-year trajectory of AGORA Magazine, a Dutch–Flemish popular-scientific early-career publication focusing on a broad array of socio-spatial issues. Uncovering AGORA's history guided by a network analysis of co-occurring authors, we develop two main arguments. First, the affiliation network extracted from AGORA's archive separates the magazine's history into five eras. These periods provide a window to understand the transformations of Dutch and Flemish human geography and related disciplines during the past decades, critically reflecting the zeitgeist of research topics, approaches and ideologies. Second, we probe the value of AGORA as nursery institution for early-career scholars, establishing myriad inter-university and transnational connections. We conclude by assessing the value of ‘second league’ native-language publications in the context of ongoing internationalization.