Geographies of Knowledge – Where Space and Thought Intersect

This paper lays out how knowledge is spatially constituted, circulated, and contested across institutions, scales, and epistemic traditions. It advances the argument that knowledge is never placeless, but emerges through historically and geographically situated infrastructures, practices, and power relations. Bringing together geography and higher education studies, the issue explores how epistemic authority is produced through uneven global networks, from universities and policy regimes to local and situated encounters. It highlights three intersecting dimensions: epistemic infrastructures and governance; meta-geographical and ontological framings of knowledge; and situated practices of legitimacy and mobility. Across diverse empirical contributions spanning multiple regions and institutional contexts, the papers demonstrate how evaluation systems, territorial imaginaries, and lived academic mobilities shape what counts as valid knowledge. Reconceptualizing universities as spatially embedded institutions positions geographies of knowledge as a critical lens understanding epistemic justice, inequality, and transformations in higher education.