Dr. Damien P. Williams, Magus on Nostr: I participate in peer review. I take it seriously. I think that it can meaningfully ...
I participate in peer review. I take it seriously. I think that it can meaningfully shape discourse, disciplines, and expertise, and i know there are other people who feel that way too.
But I've also seen peer review be used to gatekeep and exclude potentially valuable knowledge and knowledgeHOLDERS.
I've seen peer review used as a cudgel, to declare the lines of inquiry w/in a disciple will be shaped thusly and no ways otherwise. I've watched peer review sideline the work of marginalized and minoritized people (i sure hope you didn't think some groups were "traditionally underrepresented" by like, oopsies). And I've watched people doing strong, interesting work get cut out of the academic conversation because of a bad dice roll on who was asked to read, understand, and evaluate the merits of their work.
And these latter cases are so frequent, we have, as a body, made a gallows humour ghost story about it:
~*~ Beware Reviewer № 2 ~*~
So i say all of that to say this: I do believe peer review can still act as a metric of professionalization and a community-based knowledge creation practice. Just so long as what we mean by "peer review" points to fundamentally reconfigured cultural values re: metrics of professionalization and community-based knowledge creation practices.
But I've also seen peer review be used to gatekeep and exclude potentially valuable knowledge and knowledgeHOLDERS.
I've seen peer review used as a cudgel, to declare the lines of inquiry w/in a disciple will be shaped thusly and no ways otherwise. I've watched peer review sideline the work of marginalized and minoritized people (i sure hope you didn't think some groups were "traditionally underrepresented" by like, oopsies). And I've watched people doing strong, interesting work get cut out of the academic conversation because of a bad dice roll on who was asked to read, understand, and evaluate the merits of their work.
And these latter cases are so frequent, we have, as a body, made a gallows humour ghost story about it:
~*~ Beware Reviewer № 2 ~*~
So i say all of that to say this: I do believe peer review can still act as a metric of professionalization and a community-based knowledge creation practice. Just so long as what we mean by "peer review" points to fundamentally reconfigured cultural values re: metrics of professionalization and community-based knowledge creation practices.