Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies partners with Hopkins Press

The Editorial Team of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies (JIOWS) and Johns Hopkins University Press are excited to announce a new publishing partnership. This partnership recognizes the importance of open-access publishing in the arts and humanities and the significance of Indian Ocean World studies as an interdisciplinary field. We look forward to highlighting the vanguard of pioneering research in Indian Ocean World studies in a variety of publishing formats moving forwards. Read on to find out more about the JIOWS’ scholarly journey and its plans for the present and future in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press. 

The Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies was founded in 2017 under the editorship of Prof. Gwyn Campbell, Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University. Since then, it has become the eminent journal in the humanities and social sciences focusing on the Indian Ocean World (IOW), a macro-region extending from eastern Africa to the Middle East, and South, Southeast, and East Asia. Now in its seventh year, it has forged a publishing partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press, which we hope will expand the JIOWS’ visibility and attract additional submissions. 

Our core founding principle is our platinum open-access policy. This means that every JIOWS publication is immediately available online without a subscription fee. Also, unlike other open-access journals, we do not charge article processing fees for authors who, moreover, retain copyright of their work via a CC-BY-NC-SA license, meaning that they can share and adapt their research in future publications. This policy enhances accessibility to the most cutting-edge research focused on the IOW to scholars across the globe.

Since its founding, the JIOWS has grown significantly. In its first three years, we published one issue each year, but since 2020, we have published two issues annually, and our article downloads have grown exponentially. This reflects two phenomena: the JIOWS’ growing status as an important venue for original research, and the huge growth in IOW studies as an interdisciplinary field, mirroring the expansion of world, global, and transnational studies. The methods and approaches that underpin IOW studies now influence disciplinary trends at large. 

The editors at the JIOWS have adapted to cater for this increased scholarly interest. Our managing editorial team and editorial board have grown significantly, membership of both representing established and emerging scholars in institutions in Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe. Additionally, we have created sections for book reviews, transcribed author interviews (‘Conversations’), and (inter-)disciplinary reflections called ‘State of the Field Essays’ that serve as primers for students and scholars in past, current, and future trends in IOW studies’ sub-fields. These compliment the original research articles that have formed the core of the JIOWS. Our aim is to showcase the very best research in our field in ways that make it accessible to all scholars, wherever they are in their academic career. 

We have had several notable successes in this context. We are especially proud of our disciplinary coverage, which includes anthropology, history, literary studies, and heritage studies. The two special issues co-edited by Iain Walker and Martin Slama on diasporas and plurilocal communities (2021 and 2022) showcase this breadth. We also celebrate the ways that scholars have interacted with the variety of formats that we have committed to produce. The State of the Field essays by Edward A. Alpers on history (2021) and Rosabelle Boswell on blue heritage (2022) are highlights. They display the vitality of two different sub-disciplines of IOW studies, examining how they have evolved and how they might develop in the future. They demonstrate that it is an exciting time to be a scholar in our field: so much has developed in recent years, but there is so much still to explore. 

Our partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press represents the next stage in the JIOWS’ (and, we hope, the wider field’s) scholarly journey.  Our first issue with the press (volume 8, issue 1), which will include two research articles, two conversations, and a book review, will be published in mid-2024. Collectively, the works are largely historical, and they represent a canon that stresses the importance of the environment and ecologies in IOW studies. This reflects environmental studies’ growing importance across disciplines, especially in the context of the current climate crisis. Indeed, owing to the IOW’s seasonal climatic regimes and its history of colonialism, scholarship in IOW studies has been an important venue for thinking through how the climate crisis has played, is playing, and will play out for humanity. 

Moving beyond the next issue, we look forward to publishing more pioneering research in our field. We are in the process of organising a workshop for emerging scholars in the Fall of 2024, which will provide a direct route to publication. But more generally, we invite submissions of original research articles and special issue proposals that approach the IOW and/or its constituent parts from any social science or humanities perspective, especially those that are interdisciplinary. We also invite authors of recent books to interview with a member of our managing editorial team to showcase their research in an accessible format in our ‘Conversations’ section. Further, scholars, including graduate students, interested in reviewing a recently published IOW-related book should reach out to our Book Reviews editor. We also look forward to working with established scholars to produce accessible primers on sub-fields within IOW studies in our ‘State of the Field Essays.’ 

Overall, we expect continued growth — both of the field and of the JIOWS — moving forward. IOW studies can no longer be regarded as an emerging topic. Indeed, given current social movements focused on decolonisation, the current climate crisis, and the growing importance of several IOW nations to global geo-politics, studying the past, present, and future of the macro-region is more vital now than it ever has been. Thus, by promoting open-access models of publishing and by showcasing scholarship in a variety of formats, we hope, in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University Press, to play a central role in IOW studies as it continues to develop in innovative and interdisciplinary directions.