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In this editorial we ask key questions about what it means to publish ‘a journal’ in a world of publishing which is driven by individual article metrics and online access. Seeing the value of journals as venues for intellectual debate, we therefore set out a renewed vision as to how the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers can provide space for more collective and collaborative approaches to geographical debate. This approach revolves around the idea of ‘transactions’ itself and creating spaces in the journal for more commentary, debate and dialogue, alongside continuing to publish landmark papers.

The growth of girls' and women's football in Africa, coupled with increased professionalisation in Europe and the United States, has led to rising international migration of African female players. This trend reflects the longer standing culture of independent, transnational migration among African women since the late 1980s and of enlarged possibilities and responsibilities triggered by neoliberal reform across the continent. This article explores how these sporting, cultural and economic transformations have coalesced to influence the aspirations and agency of female youth and young women in Ghana. To do so, we draw on original data from ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana, Sweden and Denmark undertaken between 2015 and 2021. Our findings reveal that for ambitious, talented female footballers, transnational football migration is increasingly viewed as a speculative route to improve ones' life chances and negotiate intergenerational responsibilities to family. Significantly, the article also illustrates that in seeking to produce this highly prized form of migration, they must carefully navigate gendered social norms and hierarchies related to 'respectable' career and life trajectories. The conclusion proposes a critical research agenda to explore the interplay between sporting opportunities, migration aspirations and diverse socioeconomic conditions in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, Myanmar has been transitioning from an authoritarian military regime towards a parliamentary democracy. Several education policies have been launched as part of this political transformation process, including the reform of Myanmar's flagship higher education institution, Yangon University. This article investigates the reform of Yangon University. Through so doing, we examine a key node in Myanmar's higher education system, and contribute to academic debates over higher education reforms in countries undergoing political transformations. The article draws on qualitative data obtained from stakeholders involved in the reform of Yangon University, and uses Arnhold et al.'s 'educational reconstruction framework' to conceptualize the reform process. It is argued that while improvements have been made to the physical infrastructure, there has been a failure to consider the ideological and psychological reconstruction of the university, which staff and students alike deem essential to transforming long standing authoritarian practices, and creating a constructive learning environment.

This is the first in a series of occasional editorials in which we guide our readers through groups of papers that we consider to be 'way‐finding' contributions to geographical debates. Our emphasis on 'way‐finding' and navigating through scholarly work engages a tension we identified around Transactions' remit of publishing so‐called 'landmark' papers which are likely to stimulate and shape research agendas in Geography. We use this editorial as an opportunity to refocus attention away from the landmark paper as a static object of high repute that people come to visit, and towards the active role of landmarks as way‐finders used to navigate and engage with a landscape. The papers spotlighted in the editorial provide noteworthy examples of recent efforts to understand non‐human lifeworlds and the legitimisation of concepts and experiences constructed in/by Majority World scholarship. The papers are also notable for their careful approach to shaping agendas, marked by an awareness of past and present geographical scholarship, while also envisioning the discipline's future. This is the first in a series of occasional editorials in which we guide our readers through groups of papers that we consider to be 'way‐finding' contributions to geographical debates. We use this editorial as an opportunity to refocus attention away from the landmark paper as a static object of high repute that people come to visit, and towards the active role of landmarks as way‐finders used to navigate and engage with a landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about runaway artificial intelligence (AI) – including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT – are at the forefront of contemporary political, social, and scientific discourse. This commentary provides a first look at ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations in supporting geographic research, critical thinking, learning, and curriculum development. We assessed ChatGPT's geographic knowledge, synthesising abilities, and potential for extrapolation. ChatGPT was employed for writing assistance, research evaluation, curriculum material creation, and content generation. Despite achieving scores of 47% to 55% on an actual exam paper, ChatGPT exhibited shortcomings including the generation of false references. Ethical concerns regarding academic misconduct, model bias, robustness, and toxic output were also identified. We assert that AI and LLMs like ChatGPT have transformative potential in Geography education and knowledge production but demand critical usage. Accordingly, we urge geographers to enhance AI literacy to enable responsible and effective use of these assistive technologies in our academic practice. This commentary provides a first look at ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations in supporting geographic research, critical thinking, learning, and curriculum development. We assessed ChatGPT's geographic knowledge, synthesising abilities, and potential for extrapolation as well as its use as a supportive technology for writing assistance, research evaluation, curriculum material creation, and content generation. We close by urging geographers to enhance AI literacy to enable responsible and effective use of these assistive technologies in our academic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of September 2012, the undergraduate tuition fee cap at English universities was raised from £3375 to £9000 per annum. This article explores the rationales underpinning prospective students' decision whether or not to apply to higher education following the fee increase, specifically, how this decision is influenced by perceptions of study-related debt and expected earnings. The article draws on data obtained from prospective undergraduates in year 13 and conceptualises their decision-making using the notion of "bounded rationality". The data show that participant's primary response to the fee increase and associated study-related debt is that "there is no point worrying". This is because in the short term, a higher education degree is considered vital to securing employment in a competitive labour market. In the long term, there is a perception that the income contingent nature of student loan repayments makes the Treasury, not the student, liable for any resultant financial losses.

This article examines the present-day perception among boys and young men in West Africa that migration through football offers a way of achieving social standing and improving their life chances. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among footballers in urban southern Ghana between 2010 and 2016, we argue that young people's efforts to make it abroad and 'become a somebody' through football is not merely an individual fantasy; it is rather a social negotiation of hope to overcome widespread social immobility in the region. It is this collective practice among a large cohort of young males--realistic or not--which qualifies conceptualizations of youth transitions such as waithood that dominate academic understanding of African youth today. KEYWORDS Ghana, masculinity, migration, social mobility, youth transitions, The popularity of football in West Africa is now so pervasive that even the most inattentive visitor to the area would struggle to overlook the sport's hypnotic hold over the [...]

This paper extends research on geographies of ageing in relation to urban academic and policy debates. We illustrate how older people in urban African contexts deploy their agency through social and spatial (im)mobilities, intergenerational relations and (inter)dependencies. Through doing so, we reveal how urban contexts shape, and are shaped by, older people's tactics for seizing opportunities and navigating the urban terrain. Our analysis demonstrates how a more substantive dialogue between insights on ageing in African contexts and urban ageing policy can create new forms of knowledge that are more equitable and just, both epistemologically and in their policy impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in geography and allied disciplines on gendered experiences in Africa have struggled to comprehend the nuances that make up young men's lifeworlds. Influenced by theoretical orientations in urban studies, which demonstrate how music offers a way to explore social dynamics in Africa, we examine the thoughts, actions, and experiences of male youth in Ghana using Guru's popular song "Boys abrƐ [Boys are tired]." Drawing on interviews and focus groups with young people in Accra, the empirical findings and analysis illustrate how the phrase "boys are tired," and the dispositions it evokes, provides a subversive critique of and protest against the precariousness of contemporary Ghanaian urbanism. Problematically, "Boys are tired" also encourages the (re)calibration of gender relations on patriarchal terms. These insights extend debates around geographies of children and youth and gender relations in two novel ways. First, the vernacular of "tiredness" generates fresh theoretical perspectives on a wider set of questions about youth agency and contemporary gender relations, namely, how young people are implicated in the reproduction of patriarchy. Through doing so, we identify a set of troubling gender relations unfolding in Accra that are conceptualised as "retaliatory patriarchy" which has three constituent elements: entitlement, resentment, and obliviousness. Second, the paper detects reasons why young men in Accra are reluctant to support feminist action and suggests how to counter this trend. These findings support wider efforts, within and beyond the discipline, to better conceptualise and prevent the perpetuation of inequity and oppression along gendered lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article intervenes in recent debates over the whiteness of the higher education geography curriculum. Focusing on UK‐based universities, I examine the why and the white in the question "Why is our geography curriculum so white?" It is argued that the answer is coloniality‐induced institutional racism. I propose that engaging with insights from critical race theory, social justice and decolonial scholarship could help British geography to more effectively challenge racism, and other forms of dehumanisation, in our institutional arrangements and teaching practices. Focusing on UK‐based universities, this article examines the why and the white in the question "Why is our geography curriculum so white?" It is argued that engaging with insights from critical race theory, social justice and decolonial scholarship could help British geography to more effectively challenge racism in our institutional arrangements and teaching practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who interact with football's recruitment and transfer processes encounter a complex web of regulations and practices. Debates over how to ensure that the interests and well-being of young football players are adequately protected, and that risks to their rights and welfare are identified and addressed, have become a topic of academic, political and media concern. This commentary article provides an overview of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) regulations concerning the mobility and representation of minors in player recruitment processes, in particular the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players and the Regulations on Working with Intermediaries. We examine these regulations through the lens of the United Nations Children's Rights Conventions (UNCRC). In so doing, the article demonstrates how football's regulatory frameworks and commercial practices inadvertently yield consequences that operate against the best interests of children involved in the sport. To counteract this, it is proposed that all planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of regulations involving the recruitment and transfer of young people should be explicitly informed by globally accepted standards of children's rights, such as the UNCRC. More specifically, it is argued that FIFA should adopt an approach that places the child at the centre of regulatory frameworks and characterises the child as a 'rights holder'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]