ABOUT THE IPJP

Origins of the Journal
The Journal is an initiative of the Phenomenology Research Group based at Edith Cowan University, South West Campus, in Western Australia and Rhodes University in South Africa, where there has been a long-established phenomenological tradition.

The Phenomenology Research Group is a circle of postgraduate scholars who have a range of research interests which cross a broad spectrum of areas including education, health, religion, business, tourism, counselling and psychology.

The unifying force which holds these diverse research interests together is a commitment to phenomenology as a research methodology.

This initiative arose out of a collaborative phenomenological program with Dr Robert Schweitzer from Queensland University of Technology and Dr Trish Sherwood of Edith Cowan University, with Professor Christopher Stones of Rhodes University becoming involved shortly thereafter.

Statement of Purpose
The Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology is intended to provide scholars in the southern hemisphere with an avenue through which they can express their scholarship. The IPJP  also serves as a networking opportunity for scholars in the region as they undertake their research. Similar avenues do exist in the Northern Hemisphere (Europe and North America).

The IPJP is intended primarily as a forum for Southern African, Indian, Australian, Asian, New Zealand and Pacific Island scholars to discuss a broad range of phenomenological issues. However, contributions from the Northern Hemisphere will also be considered.

The underlying assumption of the IPJP is that phenomenology provides researchers with a unique research philosophy which allows them to explore issues central to the question of being human. It enables the richness of human experience to be fully explicated.

We particularly seek to support and encourage those scholars who feel the need for a further dimension in their research that would enable them to explore topics whose import lies beyond the reach of measurement and calibration, and in areas such as human meaning, experience, values, and truthfulness. Moreover, we envisage the Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology as providing established scholars and students with an avenue for publishing written material and undertaking new exploratory research in areas such as emotional sentiment, mental states, bodily experience and existence as well as social and interpersonal relationships, and the contexts in which these take place.

Listings
Directory of Open Access Journals
The IPJP is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals which is a service that provides access to quality controlled open access journals. The DOAJ aims to be comprehensive and cover all open-access scientific and scholarly journals that use an appropriate quality control system to guarantee the content, and it is not limited to particular languages or subject areas. 

"We envisage the IPJP as providing established scholars and students with an avenue for publishing written material and undertaking new exploratory research in areas such as social relationships, bodily experience, emotional sentiment, mental states, and the contemporary contexts in which these take place."

The directory only contains full-text, open-access scientific and scholarly journals that use an appropriate quality control system to guarantee the content.

SHERPA  Project
The SHERPA partnership is a large, diverse and representative body of institutions, ranging from smaller specialised bodies such as SOAS, through to large, diverse Universities like Cambridge and Oxford. The partnership includes the British Library and the Arts and Humanities Development Service with their skills and experience in intellectual property rights, data preservation and collection management.

The partners are all research-led institutions that are well placed to take full advantage of the facilities that eprint repositories and extended-data repositories can offer.

The IPJP is registered with SHERPA as a Blue category publisher in terms of its publication policy.

Contemporary Research Database
The IPJP is included in the prestigious on-line "Contemporary Research Database" which covers a broad range of disciplines and subjects in the humanities, law and economics. To be included in their database for regular indexing, journals have to meet stringent requirements, including a strict adherence to peer-review systems, and, finally, be approved by the editor and/or the editorial board of the CRD (www.contemporaryresearch.net).

SA ePublications
The IPJP is catalogued by SA ePublications which is the most comprehensive, searchable collection of full-text electronic South African journals in the world, and focuses on making journals published in South Africa available online. The service currently includes 227 publications, with new publications being added on an ongoing basis. The SA ePublications service enables users to easily locate, display and print full- text documents from their desktops; search on full text, on abstract, or on both, by article title, author, subject, ISSN, etc., and electronically access full-text versions of articles that are exact copies of the printed versions. (www.sabinet.co.za/journals/journals_publist.html)

The DoE, South Africa
The IPJP is approved by the Department of Education (South Africa) for educational and research subsidy purposes. In order to be accredited by the DoE, journals have to be peer-reviewed and must show evidence of producing internationally acceptable scholarly material that supports high level learning, teaching and research. Addititionally, approved journals must be devoted to disseminating original research and new developments within specific disciplines, sub-disciplines or fields of study. 

Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
The IPJP is a member of  the Editor's Forum, established under the auspices of ASSAf. The Forum aims to provide support, guidance, networking and quality control for South African-based journals through their voluntary association.