The Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography is therefore well established and recognized as the leading periodical dealing specifically with geographical and social science perspectives on the tropical world including the Americas, Africa, Asia Australia and Oceania. It acts as a forum for scholars and specialists – not only those working on issues relating to the tropical world from the “outside” but also those who work and live within the tropics. Specifically the Journal targets authors working on tropical environments, who find a dedicated intellectual space and a commitment to constructive and prompt review. The Journal is important moreover, to many scholars from elsewhere in Asia and Africa (and the wider ‘tropical world’), who are encouraged to submit and develop material for an international audience (almost a quarter of material published in the Journal is from scholars based outside OECD member states and beyond the usual Anglo-American ‘core’ of Anglophone geography). The Journal also prides itself in setting agendas across the ‘cutting edge’ of debates, such as those about fieldwork in the tropics, or post-colonialism and development. From 2000 onwards, the Journal has been published three times a year in March, July and November.

In addition to the long established focus and interventions on tropical environments, over the last decade the Journal has increasingly become a key forum for critical work on the histories of tropical geography, postcolonial perspectives and the rethinking of the geographies of development. This has been finessed through a set of special issues and Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography lectures held at international conferences (and subsequently published in the journal with commentaries). The inaugural lecture of the series was given by Professor Chua Beng Huat of the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore at the First Global Conference on Economic Geography, Singapore, December 2000. Past SJTG Lectures were given by Michael Watts, Felix Driver, JK Gibson-Graham, Michael F Thomas, John Connell and Aihwa Ong. The 2009 lecture entitled “Politicians and Geomorphological Blunders” was presented by Professor Jon Nott, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University at the International Conference of Geomorphology in Melbourne on 10 July 2009. Professor Nott’ address will be published in the November 2010 issue of the SJTG. The 2010 lecture entitled “Comparisons: Colonial or Cosmopolitan?” was presented by Professor Jennifer Robinson of University College, London, UK at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers in London on 3 September 2010. Dr Robinson’s address will be published in the July 2011 issue of the SJTG. The 2011 SJTG Lecture was delivered by Professor Victoria Lawson of Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, at the Conference of the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in Seattle on 13 April 2011. Her presentation will be published in the March 2012 issue of the SJTG.

In December 2010, James D. Sidaway ended his four years stint (since 2006) as co-editor of SJTG to become a member of the Journal’s International Advisory Board. The Department makes a substantial investment in sustaining the journal, through a dedicated Editorial Assistant, cartographic support and sponsorship of conferences, plenary sessions, student conference funding and prizes. In 2008, the Journal funded a student from a tropical country to participate in the University of Manchester’s Summer Institute of Economic Geography programme. In January 2009, the Journal established the SJTG Conference Award Evaluation Committee to help fund the Department’s graduate students in overseas conferences. The Editorial Board comprises members of the Department and meets at least twice a year. In addition the Editorial Board is consulted frequently (via email) on specific papers, proposals for special issues/special sections and editorial directions. The Department-centered Editorial Board is strengthened and complimented by an International Advisory Board comprising specialists in human and physical environments of various tropical regions.

The SJTG also features sections on book reviews and conferences of pertinence to the tropical world. Since the year 2000, special issues on themes of relevance to the tropics have become a regular aspect of the journal. Past themes have included a special 40th anniversary issue (1993) that featured articles reviewing the development of geography in various parts of the tropical world; Gender and Space in the Tropical World (1996); Tourism in Southeast Asia (1998); Constructing the Tropics (2000); Economic Globalisation and the Tropical World in the New Millennium (2000); Global Processes, Local Responses: Resistance and Compliance in Southeast Asia (2001); and Forced Evictions in Tropical Cities (2002).

The Journal commemorated its 50th anniversary in 2003 with the publication of three Special Issues focusing on the overall theme of Postcolonialism and Eurocentrism.

Between 2006 and 2011, five special issues and one Special Forum were published:

• March 2006 : Remote Sensing on Monitoring and Modelling of Tropical Deforestation, edited by Douglas O. Fuller and Rinku Roy Chowdhury;
  

• November 2006 : Postcolonial geographies of Development, edited by Marcus Power, Giles Mohan and Claire Mercer
  

• March 2007 : Gender and Agrobiodiversity, edited by Janet Momsen
  

• March 2008 : Cinematic Representation of the Urban Tropical City, edited by Chua Beng Huat
  

• March 2009 : Continental Drift? Development Issues in Asia, Latin America and Africa (Special Forum) by Jessie Ph.H. Poon and Henry Wai-Chung Yeung
  

• July 2009 : Neoliberalism, Mobilities and Development: Caribbean Intersections, edited by Tracey Skelton and Susan Mains

• March 2010 : Small Island Sustainability in the Pacific, edited by Katherine V. Gough, Tim Bayliss-Smith, John Connell and Ole Mertz
  

• July 2010 : Environmental Dimensions of the Mexican Tropics (Special Theme), edited by Irasema Alcantara-Ayala and Alan Dykes

• March 2011 : Livelihoods and Globalization in Sub-Saharan Africa (Special Theme) by Ann Obserhauser & Ibipo Johnston-Anumonwo

• November 2011 : Tropicality-in-motion: Performing Tropical Architecture (Special Theme) by Lilian Chee, Jiat-Hwee Chang and C.T. Wong, Bobby

Several more prospective special issues or special sections have been commissioned for the next three years. These include :

• 'Other' Political Ecologies by Godwin Ojo, Soyeun Kim, Rukhe Zehara Saidi and Raymond Bryant

• Fragmentation, Conflict and Hope in the Neoliberal City: Urban Space in Latin America (Special Theme) by Jose Carlos G Aguiar and Rivke Jaff

• Regionalization at the Margins: Ethnic Minority Cross-border Dynamics in the Greater Mekong Sub-region by Janet Sturgeon

Subscriptions to the journal continue to thrive; with a majority of these now being electronic (Blackwell participates in a number of consortia and a scheme allowing free access for institutions in least developed countries). In 2005, the SJTG was ranked 14 out of 38 journals in the discipline of Geography, with its citation impact factor (1.457) tripling from that in 2003 (according to the ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking).

The impact factor for 2008 is 1.179 which ranks the SJTG 27th out of an expanding list of 51 Geography journals. For 2009 the impact factor is 0.578. Notwithstanding variation in this metric, the SJTG is always widely read with submissions and readers from across the world.

This combination of activities, impacts and roles draw upon and reinforce the reputation of the Department of Geography as a key and vital node in setting disciplinary agendas and articulating geographers and geography from an array of regions and across scholarly traditions. The SJTG is a concrete embodiment of this aspiration and achievement.

Click here for information on submissions to the journal.