ISSN

0379-9867 (PRINT)
2959-510X (ONLINE)

Focus and scope

New Contree serves as a scholarly voice and platform for instilling and disseminating specific and comparative local and regional history debate in Africa and its value in broader (transnational contexts). New Contree’s intellectual repertoire compliments a rigorous theoretically reflexive social history in which inclusivity in reconstructing the past from ‘below’ (ordinary people’s voice, and acknowledging smaller community activities) and also from ‘above’ (be informed on related actions, for example, central authority, government and national figures) matters. Change occurs through the interaction of major decisive events and the rhythm of seemingly trivial, prosaic, and almost discreet courses of daily life. New Contree aims to publish high-quality academic articles that address research on the history of regions and localities in Southern Africa in particular, but also in Africa and other parts of the world, especially from a comparative angle. Any aspect of the activity, topic or/and phenomenon in urban, rural, social, cultural, health, environmental, economic, and political life locally, regionally, or/and in other global contexts is of interest. The New Contree also welcomes contributions on regions and localities, contributing towards, and emanating from, refreshed methodological, theoretical and historiographical views. Changing research approaches in local and regional histories to facilitate community knowledge systems towards co-arriving at a broader understanding of sustainable environments is encouraged, and scholarly reporting is welcomed. Multidisciplinary-like research in histories of localities and regions – with a vision to also provide a comprehensive understanding through the methodologies of other disciplines – is accommodated and encouraged. New Contree also supports review articles and book reviews related to regional and local history. Researchers from any academic institution are encouraged to communicate with the New Contree Editorial Advisory Board if they are interested in acting as guest editors for a supplementary issue.

Historical data

The journal was established in January 1977 under the former Institute of Historical Studies of the Human Science and Research Council as Contree. At the time, its establishment was viewed as: '…an important development in co-ordinating and advancing regional historical research in the [Republic of South Africa] RSA, since it creates a channel whereby interested persons will be able to discuss matters of mutual interest and through which guidance can be given to those anxious to study in this field. At the same time, Contree will serve as a medium for recording and publishing research results'. Also, the need was expressed that: '… fragmentary attempts by various people and organizations to write local and regional history should be co-ordinated' (From: 'Editorial', Contree: Journal for South African urban and regional history, 1 (January 1977, p. 3). So Contree’s original scope was mainly local and regional histories from everyday life but has slightly extended in 1996 to accommodate a multidisciplinary scholarship in regional studies, but still with a deepened historical departure. This scope change happened shortly after the recent day North-West University’s Mafikeng Campus took over the Contree’s editorial obligations from the University of Johannesburg. The name of the journal also then changed to New Contree. Several regional-related topical voices were introduced by the Editorial Advisory at the time, such as a political voice, economic voice, social voice etcetera. In 2008 the journal’s administration migrated to the North-West University’s Vaal Triangle Campus. At this time the Editorial Advisory Board further felt the need to clarify its journal focus. A journal subtitle for New Contree was developed namely the Journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa. New Contree operated for 12 years under this extended title, while still emphasising regional and local histories in especially Southern Africa. However, from the December 2020 issue, the Editorial Advisory Board of New Contree has decided to rather strengthen its ownership of New Contree as only name for the journal, and that its existing focus will narrow down to accommodate and publish mainly research in local and regional histories (inclusive of urban and rural history) in Africa and Southern Africa in particular.

Publication frequency

The journal publishes one volume each year. Articles are published online when ready for publication and then printed in an end-of-year compilation. Additional collections may be published for special events (e.g. conferences) and when special themes are addressed.

Types of articles published

Read full details on the submissions guidelines page.

Open access

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. Learn more about the journal copyright, licensing and publishing rights.

Review process

The journal has a double-blinded peer review process. Manuscripts are initially examined by editorial staff and are sent by the Editor-in-Chief to two expert independent reviewers, either directly or by a Section Editor. Read our full peer review process.

Marketing

AOSIS has a number of ways in which we promote publications. Learn more here.

Membership

AOSIS is a member and/or subscribes to the standards and code of practices of several leading industry organisations. This includes the Directory of Open Access Journals, Ithenticate, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, CrossRef, Portico and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Learn more here.

All articles published in the journal are included in:

• EBSCO Host
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• GALE, CENGAGE Learning
• Web of Science Other Coverage, Emerging Sources Citation Index, ESCI

The full text of the journal articles is deposited in the following archives to guarantee long-term preservation:

• AOSIS Library
• Portico
• SA ePublications, Sabinet
• South African Government Libraries

AOSIS is also a participant in the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) initiative. LOCKSS will enable any library to maintain their own archive of content from AOSIS and other publishers, with minimal technical effort and using cheaply available hardware. The URL to the LOCKSS Publisher Manifest for the journal is, https://newcontree.org.za/index.php/nc/gateway/lockss. Please inform us if you are using our manifest as we would like to add your name to the list above.

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The Impact Factor is a journal-level measurement reflecting the yearly average number of citations of recent articles published in that journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher Impact Factors are often deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. Therefore, the more often articles in the journal are cited, the higher its Impact Factor.

The Impact Factor is highly discipline-dependent due to the speed with which articles get cited in each field and the related citation practices. The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication varies highly amongst disciplines. Accordingly, one cannot compare journals across disciplines based on their relative Impact Factors.

We provide several citation-based measurements for each of our journals, if available. We caution our authors, readers and researchers that they should assess the quality of the content of individual articles, and not judge the quality of articles by the reputation of the journal in which they are published.