Coastal Studies & Society
It is our ambition that Coastal Studies and Society will be the leading hub for world research in coastal studies. The journal will be the forum for a wide-ranging cooperation between coastal humanities and social science research and other fields of human knowledge, promoting new alignments able to challenge older agendas and methodologies, and propose new ones. It will cater to a growing and vibrant area of scholarly work that is currently scattered and will find here a common place for shared encounters and synergies.
Coasts are, by definition, adjacent to large bodies of water. This has made it difficult to carve out a space for discussion of coasts as distinct from oceans, and of coastal studies as something distinct from maritime studies. We aim to coordinate and direct sustained attention to the relationship between the land and sea and society, that comprises a nature-culture hybrid territory which has appeared at the periphery of so many academic inquiries, but at the centre of too few. The new approaches to the coast are diverse, but they share an enhanced concern for the local, the adjacent, or the domestic, discriminating between the fine gradations of coastal experience. They may also approach local specificities as the basis for the travelling ideas, people, animals, plants and assets that explain the role of coasts as open global interfaces. All of these themes can be considered across disciplines, and at different temporal and spatial scales. Therefore, we will seek comparisons when possible, without assuming that all coasts should necessarily resemble each other.
We take the concept of ‘coastal’ at its broadest sense, potentially including estuaries, major rivers and inland seas, archipelagos and interstitial ecotones, as well as communities, spaces and people connected to the coast, and concepts of identity, nationhood and interconnectivity across all forms of watery borderlands. Rather than positing a single ideal ‘coast’, we will emulate the field of island studies and assume that there will be many different coasts in different contexts, shaped by human agency and by more-than-human influences, requiring multi-lens perspectives.
The editors are open to submissions from across the full spectrum of the humanities and social sciences. We are also particularly interested in interdisciplinary collaborations that overcome customary academic and institutional barriers and stimulate dialogue and exchanges across different knowledge domains, encouraging contributions that holistically address the complex interactions of the coastal realms. While we expect to publish an eclectic range of articles with varied themes, methodologies and approaches, subject matter might include: port towns and urban cultures; built environment and urban planning; rural coasts; littoral societies; fisheries; indigenous contexts; traditional knowledge; “more than human” or animal-centered interpretations; wet ontologies; risk, vulnerability, and resilience in the anthropocene; “coastal squeeze” in the context of sea level rise and other pressures; coastal management; sustainability and conservation; structural inequalities; migration; gender and sexuality; leisure and sport.
In the spirit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we will welcome submissions that deepen our understanding of coastal pasts, but also those that confront the challenges of the coastal present, or explore possible coastal futures in an era of sea level rise and climate crisis.
| Joana Gaspar de Freitas | School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, Portugal |
| Robert James | University of Portsmouth, UK |
| Isaac Land | Indiana State University, USA |
| João Alveirinho Dias | Center of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Algarve, Portugal |
| Melanie Bassett | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth, UK |
| Brad Beaven | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth UK |
| Karl Bell | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth, UK |
| Gerald Bigelow | Institute of Archaeology, University of Highlands and Islands, UK |
| Cristina Brito | Center for Humanities, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portugal |
| Young Rae Choi | Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University, USA |
| Sharika Crawford | United States Naval Academy, USA |
| Elsa Devienne | History, Northumbria University, UK |
| Hanna Hagmark-Cooper | Aland Maritime Museum, Aland Islands, Finland |
| Matthew Heaslip | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth, UK |
| Daisuke Higuchi | Literature, Kobe University, Japan |
| Poul Holm | Trinity College Dublin, Ireland |
| Tara Inniss | Faculty of Humanities and Education, University of the West Indies, Barbados |
| David Jarratt | University of Central Lancashire, UK |
| Kirsi Keravuori | History, Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki, Finland |
| Silja Klepp | Department of Geography, Kiel University, Germany |
| Julia Leikin | History, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia |
| Judy Mann-Lang | Conservation Strategist, South African Association for Marine Biological Research, Durban, South Africa |
| Steve Mentz | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. John’s University, USA |
| Jenia Mukherjee | Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India |
| Rudolph Ng | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth UK |
| Tomas Nilson | History, Halmstad University, Sweden |
| Antonio Ortega Santos | Contemporary History Department, University of Granada, Spain |
| Giacomo Parrinello | Sciences Po, Paris, France |
| Christopher Pastore | History, SUNY-Albany, USA |
| Cathryn Pearce | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth, UK |
| Helen Rozwadowski | Department of History, University of Connecticut, USA |
| Lise Sedrez | History Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Mathias Seiter | Port Towns and Urban Cultures, University of Portsmouth UK |
| Philip Steinberg | Department of Geography, Durham University, UK |
| Johnathan Thayer | Library and Information Studies, Queens College, CUNY, USA |
| Jamin Wells | History, University of West Florida, USA |
| David Worthington | History, University of the Highlands and Islands, UK |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Coastal Studies & Society
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cls to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Coastal Studies & Society will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Coastal Studies & Society will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.5 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Identifiable information
4.4 Supplemental material
4.5 Reference style
4.6 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Before submitting your manuscript to Coastal Studies & Society, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope:
It is our ambition that Coastal Studies & Society will be the leading hub for world research in coastal studies. The journal will be the forum for a wide-ranging cooperation between coastal humanities and social science research and other fields of human knowledge, promoting new alignments able to challenge older agendas and methodologies, and propose new ones. It will cater to a growing and vibrant area of scholarly work that is currently scattered and will find here a common place for shared encounters and synergies.
Coasts are, by definition, adjacent to large bodies of water. This has made it difficult to carve out a space for discussion of coasts as distinct from oceans, and of coastal studies as something distinct from maritime studies. We aim to coordinate and direct sustained attention to the relationship between the land and sea and society, that comprises a nature-culture hybrid territory which has appeared at the periphery of so many academic inquiries, but at the centre of too few. The new approaches to the coast are diverse, but they share an enhanced concern for the local, the adjacent, or the domestic, discriminating between the fine gradations of coastal experience. They may also approach local specificities as the basis for the travelling ideas, people, animals, plants and assets that explain the role of coasts as open global interfaces. All of these themes can be considered across disciplines, and at different temporal and spatial scales. Therefore, we will seek comparisons when possible, without assuming that all coasts should necessarily resemble each other.
We take the concept of ‘coastal’ at its broadest sense, potentially including estuaries, major rivers and inland seas, archipelagos and interstitial ecotones, as well as communities, spaces and people connected to the coast, and concepts of identity, nationhood and interconnectivity across all forms of watery borderlands. Rather than positing a single ideal ‘coast’, we will emulate the field of island studies and assume that there will be many different coasts in different contexts, shaped by human agency and by more-than-human influences, requiring multi-lens perspectives.
The editors are open to submissions from across the full spectrum of the humanities and social sciences. We are also particularly interested in interdisciplinary collaborations that overcome customary academic and institutional barriers and stimulate dialogue and exchanges across different knowledge domains, encouraging contributions that holistically address the complex interactions of the coastal realms. While we expect to publish an eclectic range of articles with varied themes, methodologies and approaches, subject matter might include: port towns and urban cultures; built environment and urban planning; rural coasts; littoral societies; fisheries; indigenous contexts; traditional knowledge; “more than human” or animal-centered interpretations; wet ontologies; risk, vulnerability, and resilience in the anthropocene; “coastal squeeze” in the context of sea level rise and other pressures; coastal management; sustainability and conservation; structural inequalities; migration; gender and sexuality; leisure and sport.
In the spirit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we will welcome submissions that deepen our understanding of coastal pasts, but also those that confront the challenges of the coastal present, or explore possible coastal futures in an era of sea level rise and climate crisis.
Coastal Studies & Society accepts the following article types:
Original research articles (6,000-8,000 words)
State-of-field review essays (up to 3,000 words)
Photo essays, practitioner-, pedagogy- or policy-oriented pieces (1,000-2,000 words)
We will not publish book reviews, or letters to the editor.
There is no set limit on the number of footnotes; however, the footnotes will be included in your word count.
Submissions should be accompanied by abstracts (200-250 words), and also please supply 4-5 keywords. Abstracts and keywords are not included in your word count.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Coastal Studies & Society adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
As standard practice, Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested reviewers.
Coastal Studies & Society is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Coastal Studies & Society can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
· Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
· Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
· Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
Coastal Studies & Society encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Coastal Studies & Society and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Coastal Studies & Society offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. For more information please visit the Sage Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage Publishing Policies and Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines on our Journal Author Gateway.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
Please adhere to the format appropriate to your discipline for submitting. If accepted we expect you to format to the reference style of this journal as outlined below.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online.
See https://sagepub.com/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-anonymize-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
- A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymised. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
- A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymised material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
See https://sagepub.com/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-anonymize-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
This Journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
4.5 Reference style
Coastal Studies & Society adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style. View the guide here to ensure your manuscript conforms to this style.
Although you are welcome to adhere to the format appropriate to your discipline for submitting, if your article is accepted, it will be your responsibility to reformat in the style of this journal, which is Chicago with footnotes. The citation format is outlined below.
For a book: Author, Title, Edition (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page reference.
For chapters or sections of edited books: Author of the chapter, "Title of chapter," in Title of book, ed. Name of editor (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page reference.
For a journal article: Author, "Title of article," Title of journal volume number, issue number (year of publication): page reference.
For a website: "Title of Website," Organisation, accessed Month day, year, URL.
Additional guidance is available in the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the Journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Coastal Studies & Society is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cls to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Coastal Studies & Society editorial office as follows:
coastalstudiesjournal@gmail.com
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com