About the Journal

UnderCurrents is a collectively- and student-run academic journal based out of the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University in Tkaronto / Toronto, Canada.

Land Acknowledgement

UnderCurrents operates on occupied Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation; Traditional Territories of the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, notably the Onödowá’ga:’ (Seneca); and Lands of Plant, Animal, and other More-than-Human Nations. Especially as many of us are settlers, who reside on this Land through processes of settler colonialism, UnderCurrents’ commitment to social and environmental justice includes recognizing our continued, collective responsibility to support decolonization, anticolonialism, and Indigenous sovereignty, rematriation, and caretaking of the Land. We encourage our authors, contributors, and readers to reflect on their relation to the Land they are on, and to strive to make and fulfill similar commitments.

Focus and Scope

UnderCurrents is an academic journal that explores relations among environment, culture, and society. We are committed to publishing a variety of scholarly, creative, and activist work that critically engages with conceptions of the environment and seeks to break down traditional interpretations of the world around us. We accept work from across disciplines and are interested in pieces that examine relations among humans and more-than-human beings, natural and built environments, and social and cultural movements. To this end, we welcome and publish many forms of work (e.g., traditional academic journal articles, visual art, poetry, short fiction, hybrid essays, book reviews, multi-media work). UnderCurrents aims to promote social and environmental justice and does not publish work that engages in discriminatory discourse. 

Journal Policies

Please see our journal policies page for our editorial, publishing, and post-acceptance policies.

Archiving

Our journal is harvested monthly by Scholars Portal Journals for archival purposes.

Sources of Support

We are very grateful for financial support from the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change and PhD Environmental Studies Students' Association, both at York University. We also thank York University Libraries for technical support with producing UnderCurrents and hosting the journal on the York Digital Journals service.

Journal History

UnderCurrents was founded in 1988 by a group of intrepid graduate students in the then-Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Tkaronto / Toronto, Canada. The main objective was to provide a space for alternative, critical, and creative explorations of the “environment”—especially the liminal zone between scholarly and creative work—as there were not many outlets for these discussions.

Over the years, scholarship in environmental studies has grown and evolved, and UnderCurrents has continued to be a part of the ongoing development of the field. As an independent, non-profit, student-run journal of critical environmental studies, UnderCurrents continues to publish creative and critical writing and artwork that explores relationships between environment, society, and self.