D. R. F. Taylor is Chancellor's Distinguished Research Professor of International Affairs, Geography and Environmental Studies, and Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. In December 2021, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. He is recipient of the Killam Prize for the Social Sciences, Canada's highest academic honour (2014).

Fiona Mackenzie is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Her research has focused on issues to do with land and the environment in Sub Saharan Africa. She has worked with both archival sources and personal narratives to reconstruct histories of land and labour in rural Kenya, recognising differences of race, class and gender in these histories.