Transitions at the <i>Journal of Refugee Studies</i>

After more than a decade running the Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS), Khalid Koser has now handed the reins to us as the new co-editors of the journal. JRS was established in 1988 as the first major scholarly journal in the emerging field of refugee studies. Over the last 33 years, it has become a widely read and influential publication, shaping debates and advancing understanding of diverse experiences of forced migration. Since 2018, the number of annual submissions has risen 3-fold. The journal has also diversified in terms of disciplines, geographical focus, themes, and authors and has a robust impact factor. It is an honour to take on the task of continuing this good work—and we are happy to be two to share the load. While we are still settling into our new roles, we would like to take this opportunity to share some of our ideas for the future of the journal and highlight a few changes that are already afoot. As we begin our term as co-editors, we have three initial goals. First, we want to maintain and further strengthen the high quality of work published in the journal. We look forward to JRS attracting methodologically diverse, theoretically rich contributions that crosscut different disciplines, temporal periods, and geographic regions. We will prioritize submissions that help move the study of forced migration forward in terms of methods, concepts, and theories. We aim to publish scholarship that is intellectually innovative and speaks to pressing questions and challenges of forced migration. We are privileged to have many interesting projects submitted to the journal and encourage prospective contributors who have questions about the potential fit of their work with JRS to drop us a line before sending in a manuscript. In order to make the journal an attractive place to publish, we aim to reduce the response and production time, so that the authors can see the fruit of their work within a reasonable timespan, while also maintaining a careful peer-review process. In order to sharpen the journal’s ability to bring important new work to its readers, we are pleased to announce some changes that are now unfolding in relation to two sections of JRS. In the place of the traditional Book Reviews section, JRS now offers a broader Reviews section, a shift led by our Reviews Editor, Georgia Cole. This section will still include reviews of recent academic books, but it will also feature reviews of other work of interest to JRS readers, such as fiction and narrative non-fiction books, films, and other digital media. The journal is particularly interested in publishing reviews of significant works published or produced in the Global South. The section will welcome review essays covering multiple sources, as well as contributions that take creative approaches to reflecting on the material being reviewed. In addition to these changes to the Reviews section, beginning in 2021 JRS’s longstanding Field Reports will transition to a reconceived Field Reflections section. This section will feature shorter pieces (2000–4000 words) based on experience or practice, with the goal of bringing forward diverse views from practitioners, policymakers, teachers, refugees, and internally displaced persons, amongst others. In this section, the ‘field’ is purposefully understood in an expansive manner, encompassing not only camps, host communities, and return destinations but also sites such as policy forums, classrooms, businesses, and on-line spaces. Field Reflections may take a wide range of forms, from analysis of policy debates and developments in humanitarian practice to reflections on pedagogy, scholarly fieldwork, or personal experiences of displacement. The new Field Reflections section thus aims to promote critical deliberation and dialogue, particularly with authors whose views can enrich understandings of forced migration but are often side-lined in scholarly publications. Second, we want to publish Special Issues in regular intervals, using these interventions as catalysts for fresh conversations on pressing and under-examined themes. While JRS has so far accepted special issue proposals on an ad hoc basis, interest in special issues has risen dramatically over the past years (in journals across the board), and we regularly receive a remarkable number of compelling proposals. In order to give equal consideration to all proposals, we have decided to move to a system of fixed submission deadlines for special issue proposals and have developed criteria for the evaluation of these proposals. In addition to traditional special issues made up of contributions solicited by guest editors (and then subject to peer review), in the future, we also look forward to piloting a new special issue format in which guest editors develop and issue an open call for submissions. Collectively, we hope that these changes may help level the playing field, broaden the pool of contributors, and stimulate important new debates while reducing the production time for special issues. Third, and relatedly, we want to work towards further diversifying the journal in terms of themes and approaches, as well as in terms of attracting more publications by emerging researchers and scholars from the Global South. Refugee and forced migration studies covers numerous disciplines and is global in its scope. We aim to strike a balance between covering a wide range of disciplines while ensuring that scholarship published in JRS is accessible and engaging for the journal’s broad audience. To this end, we will be recruiting a small group of Associate Editors from different disciplinary and institutional backgrounds, who will work closely with us to ensure that the review process benefits from the stewardship of an editorial team that can draw on both in-depth disciplinary expertise and a strong commitment to intellectual pluralism and inter-disciplinarity. We will also work towards expanding opportunities for authors who do not have the privileges that come with working at well-established and well-funded universities—usually in the Global North—to become involved with JRS, including as reviewers, authors, and guest editors. While this ought to be important for any academic journal, it is especially vital for a journal like JRS that is concerned with displaced persons, the vast majority of whom live in the Global South. We are aware that there is no quick fix to this challenge but anticipate taking a number of steps in relation to this issue. These measures include refreshing the membership of the editorial board to involve more emerging scholars and researchers from around the world. We also hope to offer increased access to language editing services for scholars who do not have English as their mother tongue and who may not have funding or support at their institutions for this. Refugee movements and populations are always dynamic, and our hope as co-editors is that JRS reflects this dynamism, providing a venue for critical debates, revitalized theorizing, and exchange of ideas among an expanding range of readers, reviewers, and authors. We are looking forward to seeing the journal grow and evolve in the coming years, and we welcome JRS readers and contributors to be in touch with other ideas and suggestions for the future of the journal. Co-editors, Journal of Refugee Studies

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