About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Borders in Globalization Review (BIG_Review) provides a forum for academic and creative explorations of borders in the 21st century. Our interest is advancing high-quality and original works in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, that explore various aspects of borders in an increasingly globalized world. BIG_Review publishes scholarship (academic articles, essays, research notes, book reviews, and film reviews) as well as artwork (photography, painting, poetry, short stories, and more). The journal is committed to academic peer review, public access, policy relevance, and cultural significance.

Our starting point is that borders offer metaphoric-conceptual tools for the study of differentiation and integration. This perspective mandates a wide range of artistic, theoretical, and empirical explorations of borders. The journal is especially interested in advancing the study of the borders of globalization. New research is documenting a shift in the logic of borders from spatial and territorial to functional and aterritorial. This means that borders are increasingly detached from territory, operating as mobile and relational nodes in increasingly complex regulatory frameworks. For example, border screening often happens far from the border, and goods and people are increasingly bordered ‘on the go’ with microtechnology and biometrics. Simultaneously, global processes are increasingly straining the territorial foundations of borders, including subnational and transnational pressures, the virtual flows of global finance and big data, and the effects of climate change. These developments impact culture and politics, including understandings and contestations of identity, citizenship, law, nationalism, gender, and Indigeneity.

The borders of globalization are rapidly being established in a variety of spaces – not just in borderlands. Like a puzzle in the making, their infrastructures and institutions interlock in various geographies and modalities around world, although not always visibly. BIG_Review offers a platform to visibalize, problematize, and discuss how these borders are changing and how they affect all other borders, physically, of the mind, and across cyberspace.

The journal also advances original artwork related to borders. Borders capture the popular imagination and inspire creative works. Artwork reflects and influences the cultures that shape borders. Sometimes artwork is subversive of borders. BIG_Review connects artists to audiences around the world through wide distribution networks and open-access electronic editions. Our art pages showcase individual works as well as portfolios, including photos, paintings, poems, short stories, fiction reviews, and more. All art is published at no cost to the artists.

See also submission guidelines For Contributors.

Open Access and Distribution

BIG_Review is an open-access publication. It is available online for free to readers worldwide. Please share with colleagues and friends, including on social media.

Unless otherwise stated, all works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

We distribute each issue to a recipient list of more than 1000 scholars and policy makers located in Canada, the United States, Mexico and in over 60 other countries around the world. We also promote the content on social media, including paid promotion.

Author Self-Archiving Policy — This journal permits and encourages authors to post items submitted to the journal on personal websites or institutional repositories both prior to and after publication, while providing bibliographic details that credit, if applicable, its publication in this journal.

Print Copies Available 

While BIG_Review is free for reading and sharing in electronic formats, you may also order hardcopies (8.5” x 11”), printed and bound in full colour by University of Victoria Printing Services, for $45 (Cdn) each, plus shipping and handling. For multiples or subscriptions, $40 (Cdn) each, plus shipping and handling.

Publication Frequency

BIG_Review is published twice annually in Spring and Fall.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Partnership with BIG_Books

Borders in Globalization Books (BIG_Books) shares an editorial board with BIG_Review. The focus and scope of the books are the same as the journal, except the books publish only academic content, not artistic or fictional. Learn more at BIG_Books. 

Funding and Support

BIG_Review is funded and supported by the Borders in Globalization research program (BIG). This publication draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (895-2021-1002-SSHRC), and from the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union (the European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein).

In order to continue publishing high-quality and open-access work in the absence of secure, long-term funding, BIG_Review aims to become self-sustainable through publication fees for academic submissions and advertising revenue.

The Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria has provided office space and support.

The journal is hosted online by University of Victoria Libraries.

Publicity and Advertising

BIG_Review reserves space for paid promotional content in the social sciences, humanities, and fine arts, including advertisements for new books and other publications, special events, calls for papers, courses and programs, and more.

Full and partial page insets will be made available on the inside of the front and back covers, as well as the first and last pages of the journal. 
• Inside front cover: full page = $1,000 (Cdn); half page = $500; quarter page = $250 
• Front pages: full page = $500 (Cdn); half page = $250; quarter page = $125
• End pages: full page = $100 (Cdn); half page = $50; quarter page = $25 
• Inside back cover: full page = $500 (Cdn); half page = $250; quarter page = $125 

Ad proposals should be submitted as PDFs directly to our Chief Editor. All inquiries welcome. BIG_Review reserves the right to reject ad proposals on any grounds.

Non-discrimination and Commitment to Improving Inclusive and Diversification Practices

Discrimination policy

BIG_Review does not make its editorial decisions based on other criteria than outstanding research and writing quality as assessed by at least two blind reviewers. Furthermore BIG_Review does not discriminate against authors or based on race, religious affiliation, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or geopolitical context. Anyone who believes they have been discriminated against should contact the Program Manager and Journal Support staff at bigmanager@uvic.ca. BIG_Review will take action to investigate claims of discrimination and may consult with external bodies such as the University of Victoria’s Equity and Human Rights Office or Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion

BIG_Review recognizes that borders have always been used as a tool for the inequitable distribution of rights, benefits, restrictions, and violence; thus, borders and borderlands are experienced very differently depending upon one’s positionality in the world across numerous qualities, most notably, citizenship, geopolitical context, economic, racial, social, and other aspects.

As an international journal exploring borders and borderlands, BIG_Review is committed to providing a forum for diverse perspectives through policy analyses, research approaches, and creative representations pertaining to the delineation, territoriality, management, and problematization of borders and borderlands.

While BIG_Review aims for diverse representation on the editorial board, invited peer-reviewers, guest editors, and invited manuscripts, reviews, and creative works, we remain committed to continually improving and diversifying our inclusive practices. Examples of ongoing equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts taken or proposed by BIG_Review include, but are not limited to:

• Adding regional editors from South America, Africa, and Asia to further our meaningful inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour on our editorial board and in our content
• Inviting participation from emerging scholars
• Offering accommodations with timelines
• Remaining committed to gender parity on the editorial board and peer-reviewers
• Providing tailored editorial support to authors who write primarily in languages other than English or French
• Remaining committed to including decolonizing, anti-colonial, and Indigenist content (research, policy, essays, art, reviewed materials)
• Increasing our readership and reviewers beyond Canada, the United States, and western Europe
• Developing training tools for peer-reviewers to recognize and reduce bias (including unconscious bias) when reviewing manuscripts
• Seeking funds to improve accessibility in our submission portal and our online journal format
• Being transparent in our review, publication, and ownership processes and policies.

The editorial board and staff recognize that improving our diversity, equity, and inclusion practices is an ongoing and iterative process. We are committed to dialogue and feedback on other measures or processes that might improve representation in and access to our journal.

Editorial Notes and Acknowledgments

BIG_Review is produced on Adobe InDesign. All content templates and design by Michael J. Carpenter, except origninal front-cover template, by Karen Yen. Since issue 5.1, all Indigenous content is marked by a decorative design by Métis artist and BIG Indigenous Coordinator, Braelynn Abercrombie, depicting salmon (as well as the sustainable practice of reef net fishing) and kwetlal or camas, which are vital to the food systems, sacred relationships, and the future health and well-being of Lekwungen, W̱SÁNEĆ, and coastal Indigenous nations.