‘Historical Geographies of Internationalism’: Still a source of inspiration

This short commentary results from my enthusiastic reception of the call launched by the editors of Political Geography (PG) for the Virtual Forum ‘The Geographies of Political Geography’. I was especially intrigued by their reflection on the need to consider the contexts and positionalities from which scholars write, which matches concerns that are widely assumed in fields such as historical geography and intellectual history. To understand the ways in which knowledge is produced, it is indispensable to reflect on its places, contexts and mobilities. Reflecting on the PG papers that have played a special role in informing one's research is a useful exercise for all of us to rethink our own research trajectories at certain moments in our careers in order to understand scholarship in-making. Indeed, the formal references that we usually make to the works and suggestions of other colleagues, such as citations and final acknowledgements, are not always sufficient to fully account for the multiple ways in which others can inspire our own scholarship. For these reasons, while considering which could be the most representative PG article among my own inspirations, I immediately thought of a text that was not a stand-alone paper, but rather the introduction to a special issue. That is, ‘Introduction: Historical Geographies of Internationalism, 1900–1950’ by Jake Hodder, Steve Legg and Mike Heffernan, which introduced the homonymous 2015 special issue including contributions by David Featherstone, Mona Domosh, Arnaud Brennetot, Jake Hodder, David Nally, Stephen Taylor and Chay Brooks.