Antipode was founded in 1969 by a group of graduate students and junior faculty of the Geography Department at
Clark University. It was conceived at the end of a graduate seminar led by David Stea as an attempt to address the pressing issues of the time. The geographers were inspired by movements of the 1960s such as the
protests against the Vietnam War, the
Civil Rights Movement, and the increasing concern for pollution and environmental deterioration. They sought to produce a "radical geography": one that would directly address the root causes of the major societal issues of the time. Embedded in this project was an attempt to reorient the discipline of geography itself, reworking its relationship with social change and intellectual inquiry. The first issue of
Antipode began with a statement written by David Stea:In its early years, the journal was independently published and it relied heavily on the unpaid labor of graduate students. Publications were not peer-reviewed and were often solicited from sympathetic authors. The editing and formatting of the Journal was conducted in a basement office and illustrations were hand drawn,
mimeographed, and glued by hand. Copies of the journal were then individually addressed and mailed to subscribers. a landmark paper in the rise of
Marxist geography and
critical human geography.
Feminist geography appeared first in
Antipode, then in other journals, an article by Alison Hayford, "The Geography of Women: An Historical Introduction." Phil O'Keefe, who co-edited the journal with Kirsten Johnson from 1978 to 1980, outlined a plan to professionalize the journal. In 1980 the journal adopted a
peer-reviewed format and in 1985 co-editors with Peet,
Eric Sheppard and Joe Doherty negotiated a publishing contract with Blackwell (now
Wiley-Blackwell) publishing company. Nonetheless, the journal has flourished in the subsequent decades and it seeks to "continue to push Geography's radical and critical edge" while remaining self-critical. The Antipode Foundation Ltd., registered July 2011 in England and Wales, manages the production of
Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography as well as several other projects promoting and supporting critical human geography. The foundation organizes the Institute for the Geographies of Justice, the Scholar-Activist Project Awards, the Antipode Book Series, and a diverse array of lectures and workshops including the well-attended
AAG Antipode Lecture. == Notable articles ==