Africa Spectrum at 60: Bridging Knowledge and Mapping the Road Ahead

We have the good fortune to celebrate and reflect on six decades of Africa Spectrum this year. In 1966, Afrika Spectrum (as it was known until 2008) launched its first issue. Sixty years later, the journal is tied as the highest-ranked African studies journal in the Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate and is among the top ten area studies journals for 2024 and 2025. This ranking reflects the transformation of Africa Spectrum into an international leader in the promotion of knowledge not only about the continent, but also from the continent. The journal's rising status would not have been possible without the excellent contributions from our many authors, our exceptional editorial team, and the editors-in-chief who came before us. As we enter our third year as editors-in-chief, we would like to take this opportunity to briefly reflect on recent developments in Africa Spectrum as well as announce some changes taking place this year.

As with any journal, Africa Spectrum reflects the time in which it is published. Early copies of the journal reflect the origins of African studies in Germany and the biases and knowledge imbalances of the era. A comprehensive history of Africa Spectrum, penned by Andreas Eckert on the occasion of the journal's fiftieth anniversary, reflects on these shifts (see Eckert, 2016), and thus we will not repeat it here. Suffice it to say that in recent years, Africa Spectrum editorial teams have sought to reflect carefully on how the journal might move from reproducing imbalances in knowledge production to, instead, supporting efforts to deconstruct neo-colonial patterns in Africa studies scholarship (Iroulo & Tappe Ortiz, 2022).

Toward this end, we have expanded and diversified the journal’s team of associate editors, drawing in a multi-lingual, multi-national team with more significant representation from African institutions. We have also worked to support junior scholars based in Africa by participating in Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) publishing workshops in Accra, Ghana. The workshops bring together twelve African-based scholars with editorial team members from the Contemporary Journal of African Studies and Africa Spectrum, with the aim of demystifying the publication process and providing in-depth, tailored feedback on draft manuscripts. We are delighted to participate in these workshops, as they help foster new connections among African studies researchers on the continent whilst simultaneously promoting rigorous scholarship for publication. With support from Africa Spectrum's home institution – the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) – the journal has provided additional English-language support for promising manuscripts. Additionally, through collaboration with guest editors, we have published special issues that bring together established and emerging scholars to share new empirical and theoretical work from Africa.

Being a Europe-based journal, we must be mindful of the potential limits of our professional networks and the need to ensure a favourable balance of scholarship coming from academics outside Europe and the United States. Our more diverse associate editor team has helped expand the journal's reach thanks to the many disciplines, languages, and countries that they study, as well as the range of institutions that they represent. In addition, we believe our growing social media presence is helping bring Africa Spectrum to the attention of new readers and authors. We have long been present on X, but we now also have dedicated Africa Spectrum LinkedIn and Bluesky accounts. The LinkedIn account in particular has attracted significant engagement. We believe this combination of a broad associate editor team and a dynamic social media presence has supported our efforts to address imbalances in knowledge production.

In 2025, 14 out of 34 accepted manuscripts (about 41 per cent) were authored by scholars based in Africa. The number would be even higher if we included in this tally the manuscripts by African authors based outside of the continent. We believe these numbers suggest a successful effort to broaden our reach on the African continent. We are excited by the high-quality scholarship we are receiving from not only Africa-based scholars but also scholars from Asia and the Middle East as our reach expands. These scholars continue to enrich our journal's intellectual impact.

Nonetheless, Africa Spectrum can continue to improve. We receive approximately 500 new submissions a year, in addition to having some fifty-plus manuscripts at various points of the review and production process. All manuscripts are subject to rigorous desk review for merit, and we maintain a strict double-blind peer review process for those meeting our standards for review, ensuring fairness and scholarly excellence. For a small team, this is a big burden and, at times, has led to longer waiting periods for decisions than we would like. To address this, our associate editor, Professor Kendra Dupuy (Western Washington University), recently joined us as a co-editor-in-chief. We welcome her, and we are thrilled that she is willing to commit more of her time and expertise to ensure the best quality at Africa Spectrum. We will also, sadly, be saying farewell to our editorial assistant, Jigneshkumar Patel, this year as he moves on to the next phase in his career. His contributions are too numerous to detail, but we would like to express our gratitude for his expert social media work, without which the journal could not have expanded its reach.

We have made three changes to the types of manuscripts that we will publish henceforth. First, we will no longer accept unsolicited special issues. Once we have completed the publication of the special issues currently in progress, we will shift to publishing calls for special issues. We believe this will strategically position the journal to publish on pressing topics and understudied areas of African studies. Second, we have discontinued review articles. Review articles were originally intended as critical literature reviews. However, submissions tended to fall short of expectations for enhancing existing literature debates. Instead, we have introduced our third change, a multi-book review essay. Multi-book review essays will critically examine three to four recently published books that address a shared theme, question, or methodological concern. By situating these books in conversation with one another, we believe these essays can contribute meaningfully to debates in their fields.

This year ushers in yet another change: the end of the printed version of the journal. As of 2026, Africa Spectrum will only be available online – as is the case for all the other GIGA Family Journals. While we will miss the sense of accomplishment that always accompanied the arrival of a new print issue, this decision reflects our concern with environmental sustainability and the reality that, as an entirely open-access journal, Africa Spectrum already reached most readers through its online platform.

We have planned an exciting Africa Spectrum sixtieth year. We encourage readers to follow our social media to keep abreast of our activities, including a series of recommendations and reflections from previous Africa Spectrum editors. The next biannual conference of the Association for African Studies in German (VAD, Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland) and the Swiss Society for African Studies takes place this year in Basel, Switzerland. Africa Spectrum is fortunate to have closely collaborated with the VAD since 2003. We will continue to nurture this relationship and look forward to participating in the conference, not least with our booth and our roundtable, “From Gatekeepers to Bridge-Builders: Reflecting on Editorial Responsibility and Decolonising Practice.” We will also participate, for a third time, in the MIASA's Publishing Workshop in Accra, Ghana. We look forward to continuing these collaborations this year.

Thank you to all our readers for your support. We hope that the sixtieth anniversary year of the journal brings you more fascinating reads and that you enjoy all we have in store to celebrate this milestone.